


All I know is you can't go back there

by StrictlyNoFrills



Series: Unshakeable Trust [1]
Category: Roswell (TV 1999)
Genre: F/M, Past Child Abuse, Pre-pilot, Pre-polar, author does not write underage shenanigans, canon AU, just aliens figuring out alien things, super slow burn, yes aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-06-22 08:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19663489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrictlyNoFrills/pseuds/StrictlyNoFrills
Summary: Disaster strikes the month before that fateful shooting, and now Michael has no idea what to do, or where to turn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from one of Isabel's lines in _Independence Day_. 
> 
> I do not own _Roswell_ , because if I did, season three would have gone quite differently, and Liz Parker would not say the word "like" so much, as weirdly endearing as that is, coming from a girl who is so smart. But she does in the show, so she will in this fic, too.
> 
> I doubt this fic will be too long, but there is at least one more chapter to go before the end. If the muse strikes, there may be a sequel that explores how all of this affects the future of the Pod Squad. 
> 
> This ain't my first rodeo, but it's been awhile, so bear with me, ladies and gents.

The cold desert air bit into the thin fabric of his button down and jeans. He would have grabbed his leather jacket before he left the trailer, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. All he could think about was the desperate and immediate need to get away.

Now all he needed was to figure out where he was going. The Evans house was out of the question. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were lawyers, which he would probably be grateful for at some point, but if the state found out that they were harboring a fugitive, they could lose their licenses to practice – along with a whole host of other things that could and would probably go horribly wrong, such as officers getting nosy and looking into their family history. Then the unusual circumstances surrounding Max and Isabel’s adoption would come up, and it would all spiral completely out of control from there.

So. No hiding out in Maxwell’s room, and no calling them at their house. What if the police tapped their phones?

But there had to be somewhere he could lay low where he would be likely to run into his brother and sister in the near future. Somewhere he could stay warm, and maybe even get something to eat…

His feet turned in the direction of the Crashdown Café almost without his permission. He could get around their security measures with no problem, and they served so many customers on a daily basis – surely someone had to have thrown out something he could eat tonight. And their daughter, who was also the real reason Maxwell tended to haunt the kitschy little café, dragging Isabel and Michael along with him so he didn’t look too pathetic, had a balcony connected to what he was fairly certain was her bedroom. He’d passed by late at night and seen her stargazing up there often enough when he couldn’t sleep that he felt confident he could predict her schedule and be able to camp out unseen after she finally went to bed.

Then, he’d just have to wait for Max to give into his need to see Parker again, and he could reach out to him and Isabel.

As scared as he had been when he fled the scene, he realized now that he had a plan and was a little calmer that it would probably be awhile before anyone decided to investigate his whereabouts. His attendance record at school was laughable, and there were only two people he voluntarily spent time with, and if school was out for the summer, as it would continue to be for the next three days, it was anyone’s guess how long it would take for him to resurface.

Michael made his way through the relatively quiet streets of Roswell, glad it would still be a few weeks before the town filled up with tourists for the Crashdown Festival. Aside from the personal grudge he had against the festivities, the overwhelming crush of people in his normally sleepy town made him feel claustrophobic. Also, now, more than ever, he needed to avoid encountering any witnesses.

He reached the alley behind the alien-themed café and grimaced before beginning to rummage through the dumpsters. After a few minutes, he managed to find a half-full carton of fries, and the remains of three different burgers. He hid behind the dumpsters and heated the food a little and told himself to suck it up at the thought of how many bacteria he was ingesting. So far as he and his siblings knew, they didn’t suffer from human ailments. Though, their apparent immunity could have more to do with the amount of effort the three of them put into avoiding close contact with other people than with advanced immune systems. He supposed now was the best time to put that theory to the test.

When his stomach was full, he was able to relax a little in his little spot. Admittedly, it didn’t smell the best, but it was dark, and it was quiet, and he was reasonably certain that he would be able to avoid being seen when one of the employees took out the last of the trash for the night.

He shivered and used his powers to warm the bricks of the wall behind him and the concrete below, trying to give himself some relief. Man, he missed his jacket. And his bed, cramped and thin as the mattress was. He gritted his teeth and told himself to quit complaining. It wasn’t as though it would fix anything.

The sound of the back door to the café opening made him tense and lift his head slightly. He hoped he wasn’t about to have to knock someone out.

_Just throw away the bags and go. Throw them out and go._

“ _Somebody’s gonna hurt someone, before the night is through._ Mmmhmmhmmhmmhmm _. There’s nothing we can do_. Mmhmhmhmhmhm. Hmmhmhmhmhm. _There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight, I know. There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight I know. Well, I know_.”

In spite of how dire the situation might be, Michael found himself having to fight a laugh. Parker sounded alright – it wasn’t like she was out of tune or anything, and her voice was sweet and clear, if a bit on the soft and high side – but she clearly had a hard time remembering the lyrics. Probably because her head was always so full of a million other things. Song lyrics were clearly not as vital as science. Still, she kept on singing the parts she knew and humming the parts that she didn’t as she finished disposing of the trash bags and headed back inside her family’s establishment, completely unaware of her reluctantly amused audience.

Once she was gone, he allowed himself a quiet snort, and then he settled in to wait. It would be awhile before the building settled down for the night, but regardless of what Max and Isabel might think, Michael had a great deal of practice with being patient. It was how he had gotten through the four years between being found by an officer – deputy Owen, incidentally, back when he wasn’t quite so crusty or so grey-haired – in the desert and being reunited with his siblings. He’d known it would happen at some point, and after the first year of failed attempts to make it happen on his own by running away from various foster homes, he had resigned himself to letting things unfold naturally. His patience was rewarded on the first day of fifth grade, when he found himself in Max’s class.

He wiled away the next few hours thinking about things that needed to be done. He would have to go back and get rid of the evidence at some point. He might even need to forge a new identity for himself and leave Roswell. His heart gave a pang at the thought of being so far away from his brother and sister, but he squelched down the ache. If that was what it would take to keep them all safe, then that was what he would do. It could work. He already basically looked like an adult, and he was smart enough that he could fake a resume and get a fairly decent job – somewhere that wouldn’t require drug tests or extensive background checks. No telling what would show up in an alien urine sample, and he didn’t think he could manage to come up with a paper trail that would stand up to _that much_ scrutiny. Still, a fresh start might not be so bad. He would have to wait and see once he knew what the fallout would be from tonight, which would largely depend on how well he could cover his tracks tomorrow.

Around thirty minutes to midnight, Michael cautiously stood up and stretched his limbs, scanning the area around the alley. Deciding the coast was clear, he made his way up to Parker’s balcony and peered over the top. There was no one on the balcony. The lights inside were off, and the blinds were drawn.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he climbed up and carefully lowered himself onto the chair. There was a blanket draped over the back, and he wrapped himself up in it gratefully. It was thick and warm, and it smelled faintly of vanilla and strawberries.

The stress of the day caught up to him, and though he’d thought he would be unable to sleep tonight, exhaustion pulled him under quickly. His last view of the night was the sky full of stars Parker loved gazing at so much.

* * *

He dreamed of the courtrooms he caught glimpses of on TV, and Deputy Owen’s disgruntled face as he booked him and took prints. He dreamed of Isabel’s tears, and Max’s sadness and disappointment. But most of all, he dreamed of a belt.

When he woke up, it was to remembered stripes of pain across his back, buttocks, and thighs, the heat of the Roswell sun, and two big, brown eyes staring down at him in wary bemusement. It took a moment for his mind to catch up with his surroundings and the events of the day before. As soon as he understood the situation, he shot up, putting the hand closest to Parker over her mouth.

“You can’t tell anyone you saw me, alright? And don’t scream. Please. As soon as it’s dark out, I’ll find somewhere else to stay, but Parker, you’ve gotta keep a lid on it. Okay?”

Her doe eyes were even wider than usual in her tiny face, but she nodded slowly, and after a beat, Michael let her go.

“Michael… what is going on? I mean, why are you up here?” She kept her voice low, acknowledging his request – alright, demand – for secrecy.

“That’s on a need to know basis, and trust me, you don’t need to know.”

Her lips pursed, Parker studied him and then said in that annoyingly reasonable tone she always used to explain her logic when she answered questions in class, “But see, you made it so that I _do_ need to know when you decided to park yourself in my chair, on my balcony. And since you pretty much don’t know me from Eve, there’s got to be a pretty good reason for you to do that. So: are you in some kind of trouble, Michael? Because, you know, I’d help you. If you were.”

“Why would you help me? Like you said, we barely know each other.”

“So, you are in trouble, then.” She lifted her hand as though she would place it on his shoulder, and then thought better of it.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She raised her eyebrows. “That’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, now, isn’t it?”

Scratching one of his own eyebrows, Michael sighed and admitted, “I can’t go home.”

Looking concerned, Parker asked, “So, it’s something with your family?”

“Hank Guerin was _not_ my family,” Michael said firmly, only to belatedly realize his mistake.

In the sickening silence that followed, Parker shifted away slightly. She glanced toward her bedroom window and then back to his face, gulping and then beginning, “Um, there were, you know, rumors. About what things were like for you. That he wasn’t very – nice to you. Um. Were the rumors true?”

Michael could see the outline of her pulse fluttering away at her neck and above the low neckline of her sleep tank, though he averted his eyes from the modest swell of her chest as soon as he realized he’d been eying it at all. He was a delinquent and a killer, but he wasn’t a creep. There were some levels to which even he would not stoop.

“Yeah,” he muttered finally, after watching Parker grow even more wary. “They were true.”

“So,” she said, trying to regroup. “So, then, it was, like, self-defense, right?” Her normally rosy cheeks – not that he noticed that kind of thing – paled, and then she asked shakily, “I mean, it’s not like it was murder, right?”

He saw again the way Hank had gone to remove his belt, and felt anew the certainty that he wasn’t going to survive it this time, and then he realized he’d closed his eyes without knowing it. When he opened them, he told her, “I didn’t plan it, if that’s what you mean. But he’s still dead.” The scraps he’d eaten last night threatened to make a reappearance as he said again, “He’s dead, and I killed him.”

Looking concerned and a little anxious, Parker asked, “Are you going to throw up? Just – just hold on. I’ll be right back.”

As worried as he should have been, watching her dart back into her bedroom, where it would take seconds for her to work up a good scream and more than likely bring both of her parents running, it was all he could do to choke back the bile building in his throat.

Parker came back with a plastic-lined trashcan. She thrust it toward him just in time for Michael to lurch forward and empty the contents of his stomach.

Overcoming her trepidation, Parker waited until she was sure he was done retching and then set aside the trashcan. When she came back, she reached out and brushed his sweaty hair away from his clammy forehead and then rubbed soothing circles on his back as tremors shook his broad frame. “It’s okay, Michael. You’re going to be okay. We’ll figure this out, alright?”

Feeling drained, he rested his head against her collarbone, distantly surprised that she let him. For a long time, it was silent, save for the early morning sounds of Roswell on the street below.

Finally, the shakiness passed, and Michael pulled away from Parker, leaning back into her chair.

“I’m sorry to come here like this and drag you into my mess,” Michael offered thickly.

“Don’t be,” Parker replied. “I think – no, I know – that I’m glad that you came to me. You’re not alone, okay? And you don’t have to leave. You can stay here until we figure out what you’re going to do.”

“Parker…”

“No, just hear me out, okay? You can stay in my room during the day, and I’ll bring you stuff that you need, and if you need me to contact anyone, or, or bring someone here, I can do that, too. And I can go to the library and do some research on the state laws about self-defense, and like, minors, and stuff, when I’m not on shift or running errands for you.” She eyed his hair and his clothes and said, “I’m not an expert or anything, but I think the first thing we need to do is get you a shower and a clean set of clothes. And then we’re burning those. You know. In case there’s any, like, trace evidence, or something.”

Michael looked down at his button down and jeans, and then he glanced at the blanket he’d slept under last night. Parker followed his gaze and looked conflicted. “Oh, yeah. I guess that’ll have to go, too.” She looked at the chair and grew even more torn.

To get that look off of her face, because it bothered him more than it should, Michael told her, “I think your blanket and chair should be safe. It’s not like anyone would think to look for any evidence here.”

Her face cleared. “Right. Of course not. Why would they?” Instead of waiting for an answer, she took stock of everything and then said, “Okay. I’m gonna get ready for the day, and then I’ll slip out to the resale store down at the end of the street. And there’s a coffee shop I can grab us some breakfast from, if you feel like your stomach can handle it? I’ll get something mild. You get some rest, and when I get back, you can take a shower and get dressed while I get rid of all of that.” She gestured in a vaguely encompassing motion towards his clothes. “Um, what size do you wear?”

He listed off his clothing specifications dutifully, while inwardly he wondered how exactly he’d gotten to this point. _Don’t question a good thing_ , he ordered himself sternly. 

When he was done, Parker nodded and then patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back out in a little bit. Try to get some more sleep, okay? You look like you could use it.”

Michael watched, bemused, as she disappeared back into her bedroom and left him to contemplate the mystery that was Elizabeth Parker.

* * *

About an hour and a half later, Michael was clean, full, and reasonably better rested, having napped while Parker was off running her self-appointed errands. She was flitting about her bedroom, putting the finishing touches on her outfit for work and talking to him quietly whenever she passed by the window. She had the radio turned on to block the sound of their voices from carrying into the rest of the apartment, and she swayed as she finished affixing her ridiculous headband and then slipped a pair of simple hoop earrings into her small ears.

Glancing at the clock, Parker made another trip to the window and called softly, “It’s time for me to go start my shift. Feel free to read anything that looks interesting. Um, there should be some notebook paper in the box marked ‘School Supplies’ in my closet, along with some pens and pencils. I think I may even still have some crayons and colored pencils, and a sketchpad I have no idea what to do with, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.”

Michael ducked his head in a brief nod. “Thanks.”

Parker nodded back and then looked as though she wanted to do something, her body tilting toward him before she stopped herself and began to turn away. “Um, I guess I’ll see you at lunch,” she said lamely.

Before she reached her bedroom door, Michael stopped her with a soft, “Parker, wait.” He climbed in through her bedroom window and walked towards her slowly. “Thank you for doing this. You could have – and probably should have – just sent me packing, or gone running for your parents, or something, but you didn’t. You’ve really gone above and beyond, and you definitely didn’t have to. I won’t forget that. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just. Let me know.”

Parker gazed at him for a moment and then gave him a gentle, slightly sad smile. “All I need you to do is just trust me and get through this, okay? If it were me, or Maria, or Alex, I would hope someone would do the same thing.” She nodded toward her bathroom. “Now, go ahead and duck in there while I walk out, and then give it a few minutes before you start exploring in my room, alright? My parents should both be downstairs already, but you never know.”

“Sure thing, Parker.” True to his word, Michael stepped into the bathroom and waited a little while after hearing the door close behind his host. Then he stepped out and began perusing her bedroom, thinking about how much Maxwell would give to be in here right now, in his place. And then it hit him again why he had come here in the first place, and he had to sit down on the edge of Parker’s mattress.

He put his head in his hands and then jerked his hands away, shoving them deep into the pockets of the pants Parker had purchased for him that morning, remembering the way his powers had rushed through his hands and slammed Hank back against the wall. He hadn’t even meant to use his powers. Never before had he exposed himself to his guardian, but he had been so angry, and so afraid, and he’d just wanted the beatings to _stop_ , and then there Hank was, hitting his head against the wall of the trailer so hard that he cracked his skull. He’d died on impact, and all Michael could do was stare from the body, to his hands, to the smear of blood on the wall, as the world tilted and his ears rang.

There was no way to know how long Michael had stood there before instinct kicked in and he ran, expecting to hear sirens any minute.

The thing was, fights were so common in the trailer park – and especially in Hank’s trailer, although calling what went on in there most nights fighting was overwhelmingly generous, considering that until last night, they’d all been entirely one-sided – that it was unlikely anyone had thought to call the police. Even now, there were probably only two people in the whole world who knew or even suspected that Hank Guerin had died last night, and if anyone did think someone’s number had been up, they probably assumed it was Michael who’d been killed, instead.

He tasted salt and realized that his face was wet. He scrubbed at his face, trying and failing to stop the rest of his tears from falling.

Giving up, he kicked off his second-hand boots and curled up on Parker’s bed. He grabbed one of her pillows and buried his face in it, wrapping the rest of his body around it and trying to muffle the sobs and still the shaking of his limbs. He felt like the little boy watching his brother and sister walk away towards the headlights, cowering in the darkness of the desert: the forgotten one. The defective one. The one who’d never belong.

Hank had been a bastard, and he’d never given a single, solitary damn about him. But for all that the man had been a monster, he’d still raised him, and Michael had killed him. And nothing was going to change that.

* * *

He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening.

Parker was quiet as she shut the door behind herself, though there was little she could do to prevent the rustling sound of the paper bag which wafted the scents of salt and grease towards his nose, cutting through the layer of vanilla and strawberries that coated her room in a pleasant cloud.

She set the bag down on her bedside table and then came to sit beside him on the edge of her bed. “Michael?” she whispered, placing a small hand on his shoulder. “I brought you some lunch. Actually, I brought us some lunch.” He could hear the slight smile in her tone as she confided, “I think Jose might be starting to suspect I’ve got, like, a tapeworm or something, because I ordered enough to feed a small army.”

Snuffling, Michael turned over and began to sit up.

If Parker noticed the dried tear tracks on his cheeks – and he knew that she did, because she never missed a thing – she was kind enough not to comment on it, choosing instead to ask, “So, how do you feel about having desert first?”

They had lunch together, and Michael let Parker’s soft voice wash over him as she shared stories of some of the ridiculous things that had happened during her shift. Then, Parker gathered the remains of their meal and told him with an odd sort of reluctance that she had a date with the Sheriff’s kid that afternoon. “I’m gonna go throw this stuff away. Would you mind stepping out so I can have a little privacy while I get ready for my date? It’s just at the dollar theater, and it’s not like Kyle hasn’t known me since we were in diapers, but still.”

“Sure, Parker. It’s your room.” He paused and then told her, “Thanks for lunch.”

“Of course,” Parker replied, grinning at him. “I’ll be right back.”

He nodded and motioned toward the window. “I’ll be out there,” he said dryly. Putting his words into action, he got up from the bed and climbed out onto the balcony. With a long stretch of his arms and back, he tilted his head up towards the sun, soaking up its rays, amazed at how much better he felt than he had earlier, and refusing to examine any possible reasons for the change.

The bedroom door opened and closed, and a few minutes later, the sounds repeated twice more, followed by the shower turning on. To distract himself from the knowledge of what currently lay behind that bathroom door, Michael did pushups. When his arms grew tired, he switched to doing sit-ups instead. This morning, Michael had been too out of it to care that a pretty girl was showering barely twenty feet away. His second nap of the day must have done him a lot of good, though, because now he could not seem to forget about it.

 _Not a creep_ , he reminded himself. Also, Maxwell would be furious if Michael ever did anything to call Parker’s honor into question. Come to think of it, Michael would be furious with himself, especially now that he was getting to know what a thoughtful, open, completely unselfish person she was.

He and his siblings had never had the chance to be anything other than completely self-absorbed. Their lives depended on constantly being aware of their abilities, and of their feelings, which could affect their abilities unpredictably, and on not allowing themselves to care about anyone other than each other – and the Evanses, at least on Max and Isabel’s part. The only exception to their rule was Isabel’s charity work, especially around Christmas, which she dragged a reluctant Max and Michael into every year.

Liz Parker had grown up as a visible, active member of the Roswell community, and she was involved in pretty much every academic activity she could justify joining, including tutoring struggling students. He was fairly sure she and her crazy best friend tag-teamed the daycare at their church on Sunday mornings, even though neither of them seemed terribly devout. Parker was more of a devotee of science, and DeLuca… she was just too much of a hippy to fit into the world of ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots’. Which, come to think of it, probably explained why they spent their Sunday mornings chasing after toddlers, instead of sitting in pews with their butts growing numb.

The shower finally shut off, and a few minutes later, he could hear the sound of the hair dryer. He breathed a sigh of relief when she walked out of the bathroom fully clothed, her hair styled into loose waves. Her shorts were a little too short for his comfort, and her sleeveless top was a little too flattering on her slender form, but that was his problem.

She walked over to the window and did a little twirl. “How do I look? This says, ‘I care enough to make an effort, but we’re still keeping it casual,’ right?”

Michael scratched at his eyebrow, uncertain in the nuances of female dating fashions. Or any fashions, all things being equal. “I guess so.”

Looking concerned, Parker asked, “Is it too much? Or too little? Should I put something else on, because I’ve only got, like, fifteen minutes before Kyle is supposed to meet me downstairs.”

With a shrug, Michael told her, “Parker, I have no idea how any of that works, but you look nice to me.” He tilted his head and then added, “That red is a good color on you.”

A smile blossomed on Parker’s face, replacing the faint stress from a moment before, and she thanked him warmly.

He eyed her bare shoulders briefly and then told her, “Take a jacket or something, though, would you? That theater is always freezing.”

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him appreciatively. “Yes, it is. Thank you for reminding me.” Shaking her head at herself, she walked over to her closet, remarking absently, “I knew I was forgetting something.” She emerged with a light denim jacket, and then she told him, “Well, I’d better go. Kyle has this thing about being on time, which usually means he’s at least ten minutes early, for like, everything. So, he may already be here.”

Nodding, Michael told her, “See you later, Parker.”

For some reason, this seemed to amuse her. Her eyes lit up with an inexplicable mischief, but all she said before grabbing her purse was, “Um, yeah. See you later, Michael.” Confused, he watched her walk out her bedroom door for what felt like the millionth time today, and then he tried to decide what to do with himself. She’d mentioned earlier that he was welcome to read something if he wanted, so he finally shrugged and went to examine her book collection.

There was far less non-fiction than he expected for such an enthusiastic science nerd. There were a few books on molecular biology, a few on astrology, and even one on anatomy, and a small collection of academic looking titles listed under the name Claudia Parker, but the rest of her books were works of fiction. She kept all of her required reading after the school year ended, apparently, whereas he sold his copies to the second hand bookstore for a bit of pocket money as soon as the section on each novel wrapped. She also had a rather extensive collection of Shakespeare, though her copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ was clearly the best loved play in the group. Its spine was practically falling apart, and there were at least a dozen dog-eared pages. He pulled that one out, curious to see if she’d gone as far as to highlight or underline her favorite lines.

She had.

After reading through the parts she’d gone over with a pink highlighter – appropriate, he supposed, given the nature of the words – and the little notes she’d added in the margins, he put that tragedy back on the shelf. In its stead, he selected _The Merchant of Venice_ and _Macbeth_ , both of which were more to his taste.

He settled back against the pillows of her bed, remembering her lack of concern over finding him there earlier, and turned to the opening scene of _Merchant,_ allowing himself to be drawn in by the familiar words.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, dear. This story seems to have grown legs and a plot. If you read the notes from the last chapter, you probably remember that this was only supposed to be two chapters and a maybe-sequel. Oops.
> 
> I’ve edited both chapters slightly to ensure internal consistency. Not much has changed, but if anyone decides to re-read parts, you might notice slight differences.
> 
> As you may have noticed, this story treats Michael’s claim that Hank never left a mark as a half truth, because I suspect that’s what it was on the show, in order to protect his past and other people’s feelings. Hank never left marks that people could see.
> 
> This story also focuses a lot on Liz’s complete inability to leave someone to deal with a problem alone. She’s got that sort of Harry Potter Saving People Thing (TM pending). And whether she knows what they are or not, she just can’t help herself from helping aliens.

By the time he had made it through all of _Merchant of Venice_ , and into the third scene of _Macbeth_ , Parker came home from her date. She looked flustered and more rosy-cheeked than normal as she walked through her bedroom door, and Michael wondered if she was starting to have trouble keeping his presence hidden from her parents.

“Hey,” she said, sounding breathless.

His eyebrows scrunched together. “Parker.”

“I just got back.” Her eyes were wide and filled with a wild sort of light. In all the years he had seen her around town and gone to school with her, Michael had never seen her like this.

“I see that,” he noted mildly.

What was the protocol here? Was he supposed to ask how it went? The only people he might have this kind of conversation with were Isabel and Max, and so far, he had managed to avoid going through this particular bonding experience. Isabel treated her dates like tissues: soft, useful, easily kept in her pocket, and disposable. The lack of any genuine emotional investment in her social interactions beyond their tight little circle meant that she felt no need to rehash her experiences with the opposite sex ad nauseum, and Michael was just fine with that. Then, there was Max, who had only ever had eyes for one Liz Parker, and had invested so much time and emotion into a relationship that would never happen that he had no dates to speak of, period.

Aside from all of that, which would have been enough on its own, he and Parker had only become friends this morning. The way in which it had happened was completely outside of the norm, which meant that they had skipped all of the beginning stages of getting to know each other, and most of the middle stages, too. Nothing to help two people bond quite like concealing a homicide. So, Michael had no idea how Parker felt about dissecting her forays into adolescent romance with other people, particularly when those other people were male.

Saving him from his ignorance, Parker walked over to sit on the edge of the bed, passing over a sub sandwich and a bottle of water he belatedly realized she’d been holding in her hands when she arrived. “I wasn’t sure, so I kept it simple: it’s a hot ham and cheddar sandwich. I thought you might want something other than the grease fest we had for lunch.”

“Thanks.” He could barely believe that he was hungry again after everything they’d eaten earlier, but he was still a growing alien boy, and he had gotten sick first thing that morning. Who knew how many calories his kind actually needed in a day?

He ate several bites and then remembered that he should probably ask, “What about you?”

She huffed a slightly embarrassed laugh and admitted, “I know it’s terrible, but I filled up on popcorn and candy at the theater. I don’t think I’ll need to eat again for, like, the rest of the week.”

With a shrug, Michael went back to his sandwich. He’d met the minimum burden of polite social interaction. He wasn’t about to make her eat something if she didn’t feel the need.

“Shakespeare, huh?” Parker remarked after looking down at the books lying beside him on her bed.

“Yep.”

“Which one is your favorite?”

“ _Merchant of Venice_. Shylock makes a pretty good villain.” He gave her a dry look. “I don’t have to ask which one you like the most.”

Chuckling, Parker asked, “Is it that obvious?”

“You might want to think about getting a second copy, and soon. Yours is falling apart at the seams.”

With a playfully scandalized look, Parker objected, “It is so not that bad! And anyway, I can’t just replace one of those plays. My Grandma Claudia gave the collection to me when I turned thirteen.”

That name sounded familiar for some reason, though it took him a moment to realize where he had last seen it. “Claudia Parker is your grandmother,” he surmised, glancing back over toward the copies of her grandmother’s works.

Following the direction of his eyes, Parker gave a fond smile at the familiar sight of her grandma’s accomplishments. “Mhmm. She’s an archeologist. She’s working on her next book right now, and she recently started working on this article on some new discoveries she made about the Navajo Indians. She’s brilliant and funny and completely fearless. She’s basically exactly who I want to be when I grow up. Except I want to explore the boundaries of molecular biology, instead of exploring the past.”

Michael wondered what it would be like to look up to someone the way Parker obviously looked up to her grandma. So far, all the adults in his life had managed to inspire in him was disillusionment and a deep-seeded lack of trust in the goodness of people. His mind drifted predictably towards his dead guardian.

Which reminded him… “I have some things I need to take care of when it’s dark out.”

Momentarily blindsided by the change of subject, Parker blinked and then muttered a soft, “Oh! Yeah, of course. Can I help?”

Grimacing, Michael told her, “Not unless you’re an expert at cleaning up crime scenes.”

She reached out and put a hand on his knee. “It isn’t a crime scene, Michael. You were just trying to protect yourself. No one could blame you for that.”

It was a nice gesture on her part, but he didn’t deserve her absolution. Having the ability to do the things he could do meant that he had even more of a responsibility to keep other people safe than the rest of the world did. People in a position of power should never use it to hurt others who had no way to protect themselves. Even bastards like Hank.

There were plenty of times over the years that Michael could have fought back, but he refrained. Aside from the risk of exposure, the probable outcome if he ever used his abilities on Hank in such an emotionally charged situation was enough for him to keep a lid on it. Though, he didn’t even have to be emotional to have poor results. For some reason, his control over his powers had never reached anywhere near the level of Isabel and Max’s, but he could at least stop himself from using them at all – until yesterday.

“I do. I should have had better control of myself.”

“Were you afraid?” she asked softly, her gaze kind but intent.

“Terrified.” There was no point in hiding how afraid he had been from her. Not when she already knew so much.

“What were you thinking, right before it happened? Why was it different this time than all the others?”

Michael closed his eyes and thought back to the unmitigated horror he’d felt when he arrived at the trailer early in the afternoon and Hank was already there, clearly three sheets to the wind. He’d skirted around the man warily and went to lay down on his bed, opting to read instead of scrounging around in the kitchen for lunch, since Hank was sitting at the table.

He’d kept one eye on his guardian and the other on his book as Hank drank himself into a stupor and eventually blacked out. A few hours later, Hank woke up and had to pee, and when he came back, he finally confirmed what Michael had feared. He’d been laid off from work, and for some reason, in Hank’s mind, Michael was the one to blame. Hank had reached for his belt, and Michael had just known it would be the last time, because by the time it was over, he would be dead.

“He was going to kill me,” he said dully. “I could feel it. He’d just lost his job, and he was drunk out of his mind, and he’s never been what anyone would call a happy drunk. And I just. I just wasn’t ready to die yet. I just kept thinking, ‘This can’t be it. This can’t be all there is before I die.’” He couldn’t die before he even knew the truth about himself. Who he was. Where he came from. _Why_ he’d been abandoned on this stupid rock in the first place. He hadn’t even had a chance to live yet, always waiting for the moment when he would have to pick up and leave because someone in Roswell discovered the secret.

He hadn’t even had the chance to find out what it felt like to be loved. Oh, Max and Isabel loved him, he knew. But sometimes he wondered if it was more out of a sense of obligation because they were the same than genuine affection for the person he was. He wanted to have that chance.

And he wanted the chance to get out of this ridiculous town.

But mostly, he had just wanted to keep breathing for one more day.

All the terror and the longing and the anger had welled up within him in an instant, overriding the suppression of his powers, and then there Hank had been, crumpled up and lifeless on the floor.

Squeezing his knee gently, Parker brought him back from the horror of yesterday and told him, “Michael, you didn’t do anything wrong. The only crime is that you were stuck with Hank for so long. That someone wasn’t able to see what was going on and get you out of there and into a better home.”

“Look, Hank was a horrible person, but I can’t just not care about the fact that I killed him. So, it was self-defense. So, what? It’s still his blood on my hands.” And smeared on the wall of the trailer.

“So, what? So, _everything_. Michael, you are not some stone-cold killer. You are a teenage boy, a _kid,_ who didn’t have a choice. You said it yourself, you didn’t even mean for it to happen. And I don’t expect you to just not care about the fact that you killed him. That’s what makes you a good person. That’s what makes you different from people like Hank.”

Carefully, Michael removed her hand from its place on his knee and placed it in her own lap. It felt wrong, being given her kindness so freely, being told he was _good_. “I’m not a good person, Parker.”

She gave him a stern look. “You are if I say you are, Guerin.” She tilted her head. “Why do you always use my last name, anyway? You can just call me Liz. Everyone else does. Well, okay, my dad calls me Lizzie, but that’s, like, a really special exception, and I’d rather you didn’t.”

Grateful for the reprieve, Michael told her, “It’s too small.”

“What?” she asked, her face blank.

“’Liz’? One syllable, for you? It’s not enough. Before today, when all I knew was what I saw and heard about you at school and around town,” mostly from his brother, but from other kids, as well – she was pretty well known in their hometown because of who her parents were and how involved they were in the community, “it wasn’t enough, and now that I’m really starting to get to know you, there’s no way that one, short little sound can be enough to encompass everything that you are.” Even before he finished explaining, he felt like an idiot for saying so much about it. Though, compared to everything they had just finished talking about, he supposed this was pretty insignificant.

Apparently, Parker didn’t think he was an idiot. She was looking at him as though she was truly seeing him for the first time. It made him want to squirm. Being seen wasn’t something Michael had ever had a reason to get used to. In lieu of doing something so obvious, he scratched his eyebrow and looked away.

“Elizabeth,” she murmured finally. “You can call me Elizabeth. Nobody else does, but I don’t think I’d mind it, coming from you.”

“Okay, then. Elizabeth it is.”

“Okay.” She looked down at her comforter and ran her fingers along the fabric in the ensuing silence, and then she glanced up and confided, “Kyle kissed me this afternoon. I mean _really_ kissed me. We've done a little of that before, but nothing like this.”

“Oh,” Michael uttered, feeling faintly queasy. At least, he thought that was what that feeling in the pit of his stomach was about. Maybe it was the sandwich. Though, it had tasted alright – great, in fact, other than the disappointing lack of Tabasco. Swallowing the feeling down, he asked, “So, how was it?”

The highly amused, slightly incredulous look she shot him then told him he’d missed the mark somewhat with his delivery. He just couldn’t get excited about the idea of Parker swapping spit with Valenti Junior. Besides, if she’d wanted some girl talk, she should have called that weird girl she always hung out with.

Starting to look less amused and more reluctant, Parker told him, “It was okay.”

“Oh,” he said again, nodding. He may have been out of his depth with this stuff, but even he knew that “okay” was not the way you wanted to feel about your first time making out - if that was what Parker meant. It wasn't like she'd said anything specific. Being _really kissed_ could mean a lot of things.

“Yeah. I mean, it was kind of soft and buttery – you know, because of the popcorn – and then it was over. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't like in the movies and the books, you know? There were no fireworks or sparks or anything like that.” She scrunched her nose and shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably. “It’s just – Kyle’s this guy I’ve known for, like, my entire life, and when he asked me out, I mostly said yes because I knew he wouldn’t mess around with anyone behind my back or try to pressure me into anything I wasn’t ready for, and because I knew it would make our parents happy. But as much as I care about him, I just don’t really see him that way, you know? And I don’t think I ever will.”

“So, why not just break it off, then?” It seemed like the most obvious solution, and ultimately, the kindest one, but what did he know? Besides, he doubted she was intentionally stringing Valenti Junior along. She wasn’t the type.

She sighed heavily. “Because I care about him and I’ve known him my entire life, and hurting him would hurt me, too.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “I never should have agreed to go out with him in the first place. I don’t even know what I was thinking.”

Lips quirking up at the corners, Michael told her, “That saying ‘no’ would hurt him, which would hurt you.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, Parker replied, “I think you’re starting to understand me a little _too_ well, and I’m not sure if I like it. A girl’s supposed to maintain a little mystery, you know?”

He shrugged. “Hazard of taking in strays, Elizabeth.”

She jolted and then looked a little stunned. “That’s… going to take some getting used to.”

“I can stop if you want,” Michael offered, though he found that he enjoyed saying her full name.

“No, it’s okay.” She saw the doubt in his eyes and reassured him, “No, really. It is. I kind of like it. It’s just different.” Finding something interesting in the comforter again, Parker thought to herself quietly for a little while and then nodded her head. “The next time Kyle wants to go out, I’ll tell him it’s over. Letting this drag on isn’t fair to him, and I don’t want him to get even more attached. I mean, he agreed when he asked me out that we would keep things casual, but I don’t think he really meant it. Or maybe he just didn’t know what he was agreeing to.”

The many times and ways in which this girl switched topics was hard to keep up with, and a little exhausting, though he found that he kind of enjoyed being kept on his toes. It kept him from getting bored. He loved his siblings, but they had a tendency to latch onto a topic and stick with it for as long as possible. He knew he could be that way too, at times. Maybe it was something in their genetic makeup. Some kind of gene that caused their kind to hyper focus.

“Or maybe he just didn’t realize how hard it would be to keep himself from feeling something real if he was with you.”

Parker stared up at him with her big brown eyes, searching for something, though he had no idea what that something might be. “Maybe.”

* * *

“Listen, I doubt anything is gonna happen, but if I don’t make it back tonight, I just wanted to say thank you, Elizabeth. For everything. You’ve been a good friend when I really needed one, and I won’t forget that.”

Night had long since fallen, and most of Roswell was either deeply asleep or about to be. He and Parker had wiled away the hours reading in companionable silence and then talking every now and then when the mood struck one of them – usually her. Now, it was time for Michael to make his way back to the trailer to try and get rid of anything that might lead to a call to the sheriff’s department, or that might point towards Michael’s heritage.

Shaking her head, Parker said, “I don’t like you thinking like that, Michael. If you’re really that worried, you should let me come with you. I can help.”

“That’s not happening. The last thing I want is for you to get mixed up in this if I get caught.”

Straightening her spine and stiffening her jaw, Parker argued, “I could just follow you when you leave, you know. You can’t stop me.”

Grimly, Michael replied, “You’d be surprised.”

For the first time since she found him on her balcony this morning, Parker seemed uncertain. Then, her face cleared. “You would never hurt me, Michael.”

“Yeah? Hank probably thought the same thing.”

Her eyes flashed. “Stop it! Stop trying to make yourself seem like the bad guy, here. Maybe you can still fool the rest this town with that whole bad boy act, but I know you now. You can’t fool me.” Softening, she stepped closer to him and took his hands. “Please, Michael. Let me help you.”

“You really want to help me, Elizabeth?”

“You know that I do.”

He did something that he normally reserved for Isabel, and Isabel alone. Pulling his hands gently out of her grasp, he gathered her close to his chest. He felt her arms wrap around his waist, and he held her tighter, resting his chin on her crown. It felt so different, holding Parker. Compared to his sister, she was so tiny, almost like a bird. “Then please stay, and be here when I get back.”

She stiffened for a moment and then relaxed. “Fine. But if I’m going to stay behind, then you have to promise me that you’ll keep my phone number on you, and if something happens, you call me. I do not want to find out that you’ve been arrested from the Roswell rumor mill.”

“Deal.”

They separated, and Parker when to write her cellphone number down on a Post-It note. She handed him the little piece of paper with a sigh and a firm, “Be careful.”

Careful, huh? Not exactly his strong suit, but he would try. He put the slip of paper in his back pocket and nodded. "Will do. Later, Elizabeth."

"I will see you later," she replied firmly, as though there were no other options.

With any hope, she was right.

* * *

As he slipped quietly through the dead streets, Michael offered up a grateful thought to Parker for her foresight. When she went to the army navy surplus shop that morning, she bought him a slightly worn, dark green jacket, along with the new t-shirt, cargo pants, and boots. The jacket shielded him perfectly from the cold Roswell night air, and thinking about the source of his comfort temporarily distracted him from the reason he was venturing out well after dark.

The sound of a car approaching sent a shot of adrenaline – or whatever the alien equivalent might be – through his veins, and he threw himself away from the sidewalk and safely behind the wall of the nearest building – an old general store that had probably been owned and operated by the same family since before the crash in ’47 put Roswell on the map.

Carefully, he peered out around the side of the building and watched as a patrol car moved down the street at a leisurely pace. He pulled back and rested his head against the brick wall, ordering his heart to stop hammering against his ribcage. It began to obey him as the patrol car moved beyond the general store without showing any signs of stopping. He waited until he could no longer hear the engine and then checked the street again.

Empty.

With a silent sigh of relief, he resumed his journey, moving even faster than before. If he were not so desperate to avoid being seen by anyone until he was sure that all signs of what had happened had been completely erased, Michael could have simply gone back during the day and avoided all of the stress of being out after curfew.

Oh, well. No point in crying about it.

He pushed himself and managed to cut the usual walking time from the Crashdown to the trailer park down by about a half. Then, his feet began to slow, even though the urgency of the task before him had grown imminently greater the moment he set foot back in this place. People in this part of town tended to keep to themselves, but they still knew his face thanks to years of proximity.

Gritting his teeth, he picked up speed again and finally (Too soon. Way, way too soon.) drew up to the trailer he had lived in for the worse part of the past six years.

He sucked in a deep breath and then let himself in, closing the door and using a tiny bit of power to be sure the door was truly secure. Then he closed the blinds and turned on the light in what served as the kitchen, and he was out of air. He had to breathe in again.

 _Augh._ Even breathing in through his mouth, instead of through his nose, the smell was already stomach-churning. The heat of Roswell during the day had probably sped up the early stages of post-mortem deterioration.

Great.

And he was distracting himself, trying to delay the inevitable. Balling his hands into twin fists at his sides, he forced himself to turn and look at the dead body of his guardian.

Hank’s face was still frozen in shock and fury. There was a fly buzzing around his left ear, and a small pool of blood on the floor by his head.

Michael jerked and turned away, closing his eyes so he could think. _Think_.

He’d had a plan, earlier, before he had set out tonight. What was it? The memories came to him in bits and pieces, and he opened his eyes and went on autopilot to the cabinet with their few cleaning and maintenance supplies and pulled out the broom and a trash bag, opening it out and then letting it sit on the table. Then he turned back to Hank’s body and lifted his hands, using his powers to reform and rearrange the molecules until all that remained was a pile of sand. His control may not have been the best, but he could at least manage this. The blood and tiny bits of bone and brain matter smeared on the wall and the floor met a similar fate and then he set about sweeping it all up and into the trash bag.

Then he went around the trailer, running his hands over every surface, every object, extending every single one of his senses.

That was a mistake.

He was thrown headfirst into the day before, seeing it all over again. Hank, hopelessly drunk. Hank, angry, reaching for his belt. Hank, hitting the wall at high speed. Hank, dead, never to move or speak or think again.

Michael reeled and pitched about like an untried sailor on the high seas before coming back to himself. Tremors still shook his body, but he refused to give into them. More carefully this time, he searched for more flashes, and to his unspeakable relief, he found none.

No one had been here since yesterday. Not even the slightly dotty elderly woman who liked to come by every now and then hoping to borrow sugar, only to be disappointed when there wasn’t any available to borrow.

No one knew.

Maybe someone suspected. Someone might even get nosy. But they would be too late. There would be nothing to find.

Before he left, he went to gather the few possessions he cared about into a bookbag he hadn’t bothered to use since finishing the eighth grade. Then he grabbed the trash bag and unlocked the trailer door, heading back outside.

Instead of returning immediately to the Crashdown, he continued further out into the desert, walking for what felt like forty-five minutes to an hour. He stopped and opened the bag, sending all of the sand flying out in every direction. He turned the bag into sand, too, for good measure, and then stood staring up at the stars that told him everything and nothing all at once.

It was only the vague remembrance that Parker would be worried if he did not return soon that compelled him to turn and trudge back toward the little tourist trap town. His mind was hazy and directionless as he worked his way back through the desert and eventually reached the beginning signs of civilization, which ultimately gave way to Parker’s side of town.

His mind cleared a little as he began climbing up the ladder and then crawled over onto the balcony, and then everything became sharp again as his eyes focused on the figure of Parker, sitting on her chair and huddled under the same blanket he had slept under last night, watching him. He stepped closer and then Parker stood, walking to close the few steps remaining between them and opening her arms while still keeping a grip on the blanket’s edges.

Part of him felt as though he should keep the scant two or three inches separating them uncrossed, feeling as though he would taint her if he touched her now. He’d just disposed of his guardian’s dead body. He felt utterly unworthy.

The other part of himself that just wanted to feel safe and cared about and wanted told the other part to get over itself, and he stepped into her arms, feeling her fold the blanket around both of them.

“You’ve been gone quite a while,” Parker mumbled tiredly. “I was worried.”

He rested his chin on her crown and sighed quietly. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

She shook her head, though not enough to dislodge him. “Don’t be. I’m just glad you made it back safely. Did you have any trouble?”

He elected not to mention the brief scare with the patrol car.

“No.”

“Good. Do you think you, um. You know. Got everything?” she asked delicately.

“Yeah. I got everything.”

She let out a long, relieved breath, followed by an even longer yawn. “Good,” she said again. “I’ve been thinking…” she trailed off, and Michael sensed rather than saw that her eyes had drifted closed.

“Yeah?”

“Mmm. I’ve been thinking.” She paused to yawn again. “Thinking about how to keep you from having to go back to someone like Hank.” She snuffled and nuzzled against him. Michael was pretty sure she wouldn’t even remember having this conversation in the morning.

“And what have you come up with?” he asked softly.

“Mmf?”

He huffed a quiet laugh and then pulled slowly away from her, before turning her gently around and urging her to climb through her bedroom window and crawl into her nice, soft bed.

He, who had no memories of ever being tucked in at night, tucked Elizabeth Parker into bed. “Night, Elizabeth.”

When he went to move away, Parker reached out and grasped his hand. “Stay,” she sighed.

He shook his head. “Your parents-“

“Door’s locked. Stay. Don’t want you to be alone.”

“Elizabeth,” he tried again.

She blinked slowly up at him with her big, brown, sleep-hazy eyes, and any arguments he might have made died before they even began forming on his tongue.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” He pulled away and walked over to her bedroom door, jiggling it just slightly to make sure it was locked, and then he shed his jacket, boots, pants, and socks, leaving on his t-shirt and boxers and crawled in beside Parker.

At first, he tried to keep a bit of space between them, but Parker wasn’t having any of that. She wrapped the closest arm around him and put her head on his chest, even sliding her foot around one of his calves. Michael gave in and wrapped one of his own arms around her, draping the other across his eyes. He felt her drift off as soon as she had him where she wanted him.

It was a little impressive that such a tiny, kind person could be so imperious at times – especially moments ago, when she had been more than halfway asleep.

For the longest time, he laid there and listened to the sounds and reveled in the feeling of her breathing, basking in the closeness of another person – especially one who had latched onto him so suddenly and indelibly. It was such a stark contrast from everything he had known before, and all that he had done tonight. A desperately needed oasis in the almost barren desert of his life.

The craziest part was that if he had not overslept this morning, he never would have had this. His whole plan had hinged on hanging around the Crashdown but never being found, and then meeting with Maxwell and Isabel so he could ask for their help.

That would have been the safest thing. For him. For her. For them. But now he couldn’t shake the thought that it would not have been the _right_ thing. Somehow, he was supposed to be found by Parker this morning. Somehow, after ten years of knowing nothing other than that he was an outsider and he did not belong, he was right where he was meant to be.

He drifted off blanketed by everything Parker.


	3. Chapter 3

An insistent beeping noise dragged Michael back to wakefulness far too early. The sun was barely up when he allowed one eyelid to crack open slightly. He would have tried to roll over and ignore the irritating beeping, had it not been for the slender form cocooned against his body.

His eyes flew open all the way and he tilted his head to stare down at the still-sleeping face of Elizabeth Parker.

How-?

As her eyelids began to flutter, the memories of yesterday and the day before came back in a rush.

Her head moved, and her breathing pattern began to shift, and Michael debated with himself. Should he pretend to be sleeping or not?

She sighed and began to shift, only to freeze as she realized she was not alone, and by then the decision had been taken from him. Two dark brown eyes, wide with shock, stared at him before Parker shot up and away from him. She gazed down at her sleep tank and his t-shirt, and then checked herself for her pajama shorts, and then she looked back at him questioningly.

Michael shrugged helplessly. “I tried to sleep on the balcony. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. Said something about not wanting me to be alone.”

Parker blinked and then rolled her eyes, looking sheepish. “I _meant_ to grab my sleeping bag out of the closet and ask if you wanted to camp out beside me on my bedroom floor. I guess I was just too tired to remember that part by the time you came home last night.” She covered her face with her hands. “I can only imagine what you must have thought of me.” Dragging her hands away, Parker said, “I swear, I so was not trying to, like, come onto you while you were in a vulnerable state, or anything. I would never do that. I just figured you might feel better if you had someone close by after what you had to do last night. And anyway, I’m still technically dating Kyle.”

If he let her, she would probably keep trying to apologize for what happened last night indefinitely, when it wasn’t that big of a deal. All they’d done was sleep. “I know. And hey, it worked. No nightmares.”

“Really?” she asked, perking up.

“Yep.”

Letting out a huge sigh of relief, she got up from the bed and went to silence her alarm clock. “That is so great, Michael. I’m really glad.”

“Thanks.” He glanced at the time and his eyebrows shot up. “Why the hell is your alarm set for 6:00am? It’s still summer break for another two days.” No wonder Parker had found him yesterday. He’d planned to wake up before anyone in the apartment was moving and sneak back down to his hideout behind the dumpsters.

“Yeah, I know, but I like to start setting my alarm early during the two weeks before school starts back. It makes it easier to transition back to my schedule for the school year.”

Michael, who tended to sleep through first and second period, if he bothered to show up at all, stared at her blankly and then shrugged. Whatever worked for her. Though, that explained why Parker was so exhausted last night, and it meant that today would probably be a pretty long day for her.

“Do you have to work a shift today?”

“Uhuh. I have the morning shift. But after that, I want to go to the library and check on a few things for you.” She looked at him carefully. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Michael shrugged. “I was fine yesterday.”

The skeptical look on her face told him she remembered the tear tracks she’d returned to after her shift, but she did not try to contradict him. Instead, she said, “It’s just, I know last night couldn’t have been easy on you.” She paused and then she added, “There’s actually something you should probably do today, now that there’s no evidence for the sheriff’s department to find.”

“What?” Michael asked warily.

“You need to file a missing persons report. I think it would look strange if you waited any longer.”

He nodded, already starting to think of things he would need to say. He would have to play this carefully. It was true that there were no signs of foul play left in the trailer, but there was still a chance the sheriff’s department would decide to investigate.

And then there was the question of where Michael should stay while all of this was going on. He had a feeling that his caseworker would get involved once Hank was declared “missing”, and he had no intention of being placed in another foster home, temporary or not. Logically, he knew that not all foster homes were like what he’d had with Hank. The homes he had run away from when he was little had been mostly okay, if a little crowded. But he had no way of knowing what Child Protective Services would come up with this time, and how far away his new placement might take him from his siblings. Besides, he didn’t need anyone to take care of him. He’d been raising himself this whole time and he figured he’d done alright so far. A few run-ins with the local law enforcement over the years wasn’t too bad, and he wasn’t planning on sticking around to work towards some sort of career, so it didn’t matter that his grades were barely high enough to keep him from getting held back every year. He’d figured out the minimum amount of effort necessary to stay in the same grade as his siblings, because as far as he was concerned, that was the only point of staying in school anyway.

“I’ll head to the sheriff’s station around 9:00 or 10:00.” He gave Parker a pointed look. “Most teenagers try to sleep in as much as they can before school starts back.”

She rolled her eyes at him good naturedly. “Yeah, yeah. Trust me, I’ve heard all of this before. Maria thinks I’m a nut, too. But I’m not the one who winds up walking through the first few days of school like a zombie, so, you know, I’m okay with it.”

“Whatever you say, Elizabeth.” Growing serious again, Michael said, “I’ll need to ask Max and Isabel if their parents will let me stay with them while we figure everything out. Whatever that actually means. No matter what, I’m not gonna get sent to another Hank.”

“Oh, right,” Parker started. “Um, I actually had an idea about that. That’s the reason I want to go to the library this afternoon.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever heard of emancipation?”

* * *

When Parker left her room to have breakfast and then start her shift, Michael waited a few minutes and then went to take a shower in her bathroom. The soap and shampoo made him smell like a girl, but he figured it was better than nothing. He changed into the jeans and t-shirt he’d snagged from the trailer last night, along with his copy of _Ulysses_ , a few bottles of Tabasco, his wallet, and his leather jacket. He stowed the bookbag with the rest of his things in Parker’s closet and then he made his way out of her bedroom and down from the balcony.

He headed toward the coffee shop Parker must have stopped at yesterday morning, UFJoe’s, and bought himself a few pigs in a blanket and a bottle of orange juice. He spiked the juice with Tabasco and swirled packets of sugar in Tabasco so he could dip the pastries in the blend, giving a satisfied sigh when his food actually tasted right.

Eventually, it was time to head to the sheriff’s station.

He tried to calm his nerves on the way there by going over his story again. There wasn’t much to it. Hank came home from work early two days ago and told Michael he’d lost his job. He had a few beers – okay, a lot of beers – and then he left. Michael hadn’t seen him since. He had given it some time before reporting Hank missing because Hank had pulled stunts like this from time to time, disappearing for awhile without letting Michael know where he was going or when he would be back, but he usually turned up after a day away, tired and hungover.

It was simple, and it had the benefit of being mixed with a good bit of truth. Hank liked his liquor, and he had no qualms about leaving his ward on his own from time to time, especially now that Michael was older.

He told himself that it would be fine as he opened the door to the sheriff’s station, and wondered if by saying it to himself often enough, it would be true.

There was a young deputy sitting at the front desk, and the sight of him immediately set Michael at ease. Deputy Hanson was harmless compared to Sheriff Valenti and Deputy Owen, who were both crusty, old, and suspicious of everyone.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah. Well, I hope so, anyway. I think my guardian – Hank. Hank Guerin – has gone missing.”

Deputy Hanson straightened and tried to look professional and reassuring. At any other time, it would have made Michael laugh. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Two days ago.”

“And where were you at the time?”

“At home. He’d come home early from work because he got laid off earlier in the day.”

Deputy Hanson continued to ask him questions, and Michael answered them all easily while Deputy Hanson took notes for his report. The whole thing went more smoothly than Michael could have imagined, and he left about fifteen minutes after arriving.

He felt lighter than he had when he went in, glad to have taken another step toward putting this whole thing behind him. He’d even managed to snow the young deputy into allowing him to stay with the Evans family while the Sheriff’s department searched for his guardian and Child Protective Services tried to find him a new living situation. A new living situation which he was never going to go along with. He liked Parker’s idea about emancipation, though he was certain there had to be some kind of catch.

No government-appointed guardian? No completely worthless periodic visits from Child Protective Services? It was simply too good to be true.

As he considered this, he made the walk back to the Crashdown and the apartment above it.

He settled in to wait for Parker, starting in on her copy of _Hamlet_ to keep himself occupied. She arrived about an hour later with a small selection of heavy-looking books.

“It’s a good thing the librarian is used to me coming in with some pretty odd questions every now and then,” she huffed, setting the stack down on her nightstand. “She barely batted an eyelash when I asked for her help looking at the selection on juvenile and family law.”

Looking at the large volumes, Michael refused to be intimidated. “Let’s get started.”

They found everything they could on emancipation and then it was time for him to go.

“Please don’t forget to turn those into the library drop box before the two weeks are up. And find some way to let me know how things are going for you, okay?” She stared up at him from within the circle of his arms, her dark eyes somber, and swallowed. “I know you’ve only been here for two days, but it feels like it’s been a lifetime. Like there’s never been a time when I didn’t know you the way I do now.” She shook her head at herself. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ll miss you.”

He warred with himself before giving in and admitting, “I’ll miss you, too. Thank you, Elizabeth. For everything. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Before he could talk himself out of it, he pressed a brief kiss to her forehead and then released her, turning away from her wide eyes. He liberated his things from Parker’s closet, added the legal books to the stash, and then set out for the Evans residence.

* * *

Michael arrived on the Evans family’s doorstep around 3:00pm, and when he rang the bell, Isabel came to the door to let him in.

“This is a change,” she remarked dryly. “What happened to your usual mode of entrance?”

Michael shrugged. “Do you know when your parents will be home?”

A line appeared at her brow. “My parents? Mom usually gets home around 3:00 to 3:15, and dad is usually here by about 5:30 since he’s the one who stays and closes the firm. Mom should be here any minute now. Michael, what is going on? Why are you using the front door instead of coming in through Max’s bedroom window, what is with the backpack, and why are you asking about my parents? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Hank’s missing.”

“Missing?”

Michael nodded. “He got laid off two days ago. Came home early, got drunk, and then he left. He hasn’t walked through that door since.”

He had debated telling Maxwell and Isabel the truth, but ultimately decided they were better off not knowing. The fewer people who knew what had really happened, the safer they all would be. He may not like lying to his siblings, but it wasn’t all that different from hiding the fact that Hank had liked to rough him up. This was just one more thing Michael had to do to protect them.

Looking concerned now, Isabel moved aside so that he could walk through into the entryway of the house. “Did he say anything about where he was going?”

“Nope.”

“So, you’ve been on your own for two days? Michael, why didn’t you come here sooner?” She was clearly starting to get upset, but he didn’t see what the big deal was. He could take care of himself just fine.

With a shrug, Michael said, “It’s not exactly the first time I’ve gone without adult supervision, Isabel. I’ve been fine.”

“You can’t just let this go, though, Michael. You have to let someone know.”

“I know. I just got finished at the sheriff’s station not too long ago, and now I’m here to ask your parents if I can stay with you guys until I figure things out.”

“Figure things out? Michael, if Hank is gone, I don’t think you have a whole lot of choice in the matter.” With a scared look in her eyes, Isabel asked, “Michael, what if they send you away?”

He shocked her by pulling her into his arms. The times that he willingly reached out to her were few and far between. He blamed the time he had been spending with Parker in the past two days for doing it now. It was making him soft. “Nobody is sending me away. I’ve got a plan. Sort of. That’s part of the reason I need to see your parents.”

Isabel clung to him, always hungry for the scant moments of affection when he offered them. She was so different from the person she let most of the world see – clingy and protective in a way that bordered on possessive. “Okay.”

“Is that Michael?” Max asked, coming down the hall and sounding surprised. Then he took the two of them in and grew alarmed. “Guys, what’s going on?”

Michael briefly held Isabel tighter and then he let her go, turning to Maxwell and shoving his hands in his pants pockets. “Something’s happened and I need your parents’ help.”

* * *

The sheriff’s department started a search. They only waited 72 hours before determining that Hank could not be found. No one seemed too broken up about it. Hank’s reputation had never been the greatest, and it was tarnished further by proof of Michael’s abuse, which had become necessary to reveal – at least to a degree – because by that point, Mr. and Mrs. Evans had helped Michael begin the process of emancipation.

Also during that time, school started back, and Michael had to actually show up in order to demonstrate to the adults deciding his fate that he was serious about getting his life on track.

He spent his evenings talking and making plans with Max and Isabel’s parents, and his nights on the fold-out couch in the living room. In the mornings, before school, he made breakfast, enjoying the chance to cook in a decent-sized kitchen for once, and feeling like he ought to do something for Mr. and Mrs. Evans to thank them for all of their help. It wasn’t as though he could pay them anything for their legal services. The last bit of petty cash he had went to buying a nice, new button-down shirt that he wore to see the judge and to have his interview with Mr. Parker for a job as a short order cook at the Crashdown.

After an interview that went surprisingly well, he walked out with a job that he would start in a few days. It was the first job he had applied for, and he’d gotten it with no trouble. He had also applied to a few of the other shops and restaurants around town, but only a few of them had gotten back to him. Mr. Parker had called him only a few hours after he turned in his application.

Apparently, the owner’s daughter had put in a good word for him.

He hadn’t seen Parker in person except for in passing in the halls at school, in a few classes, and a short time on the second evening of his stay with the Evans family. Maxwell had gotten one of his usual urges for alien-themed diner food, probably brought on this time because it was the end of the first day of school, and he’d been around Parker all day but hadn’t had any reason to say anything to her other than “Hi, Liz. How was your summer?” so he hadn’t been able to get his fix. His brother was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t have to drag Michael there the way he normally would have.

Maxwell struck out, because Parker didn’t actually have a shift that evening. It made his brother more mopey than usual, but Michael left him alone about it, opting to focus on his fries.

Sometimes a man just needed to be allowed to be in a funk about things. Especially when that man was Max.

While they were at the diner, Michael excused himself to the bathroom and then snuck out, going to Parker’s balcony. He found her sitting on her chair, already studying for one of her classes. She looked up at him and smiled, setting the textbook aside. Then she got up and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “Michael!” She grew stern as she pulled away slightly. “I haven’t heard from you in two days. How are you? What’s going on? Are the Evanses helping like you said they would? I know we said we’d keep our distance from each other for awhile and then ease people into the idea of us being friends, but I’ve been going a little out of my mind, here.”

That had been his idea. He wasn’t sure how his brother and sister would react to him suddenly having a friend, and especially when that friend was Parker. He had found himself regretting it for the past two days, having grown used to having her close in the short time that she had helped him hide away from the rest of the world, but that made it all the more necessary for him to stay away. That feeling of rightness he’d had on his second night at her place was dangerous. He couldn’t afford to let himself get that attached. He’d always sworn to himself that he would keep everyone but his siblings at arms-length, so that when it was time for them to leave, he wouldn’t have any regrets or anything holding him back….

Too late. He tightened his arms around her and rested his head atop her own. “Look, I’m sorry. Things have just been moving really fast. Mr. and Mrs. Evans have been great, and so has your dad. Thank you for saying something to him about me, by the way.”

“Of course. I’m just glad it helped.” She grinned up at him brightly then. “And hey, this is actually pretty great, because now we have the perfect reason to get people used to seeing us getting along.” She paused for a moment and then she told him, “I broke things off with Kyle yesterday. He came by to see if I wanted to go on one last date before the school year started, and I told him we should just go back to being friends.”

Michael nodded once. “How’d he take it?”

She grimaced. “Not that great. I mean, he said that he understood, but I think he was pretty crushed.” With a sigh, she asked, “But it’s better this way, right? I mean, it’s better to stop things before breaking up would hurt him even more?”

“I’m not really the person to ask about relationships, Elizabeth,” he replied wryly.

“No, yeah. I know that.” She laughed at herself briefly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She was quiet for a moment and then she asked, “So, you’re doing okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.” He opted not to tell her about the nightmares he’d been having, or that he was able to get up early and cook before school because he’d barely been sleeping at all for the past two nights.

Hank’s ghost was haunting him in his sleep, and probably would for a long time. He told himself that his lack of nightmares the night he’d curled up with Parker had been a fluke, and that even if it hadn’t, there was nothing he could do about it.

“Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?” she asked softly. She always noticed too much. He would have to be more careful. Since he couldn’t seem to stay away from her, he was going to have to keep a tight lid on his abilities.

It was one thing to risk being friends with her. It was an entirely different thing to risk allowing her to find out the truth about him – because it was never about just him.

Reminded of his siblings, he squeezed her lightly and then stepped away, letting her go. “I’ve gotta go. Maxwell’s probably starting to wonder where I am.”

“Michael-“

“I’ll see you later,” he said gently. “Goodnight, Elizabeth.”

Parker sighed. “Goodnight, Michael.” Mustering a small smile, she said, “Thank you for coming to see me. I’m really glad things are working out for you.”

He quirked his lips up in an answering smile and nodded before heading down the ladder.

When he got back to the table, Maxwell asked, “What took you so long?”

Michael shrugged. “There was a line.”

After giving him a slightly incredulous look, his brother let it go.

They left the Crashdown not long after that. There was a small mountain of paperwork for each of them from the various classes they had. Stuff like acknowledging the student code of conduct and listing emergency contacts. Until things were finalized in a few days, Michael couldn’t sign for himself in place of a parent or guardian, so he figured he could let the paperwork lapse for a little while.

It wasn’t as though they could bar him from attendance for not turning them in. The paperwork had no bearing on his grades or his performance in class.

Life fell into a rhythm for a few days, and then The Day arrived. The day he became legally emancipated.

He made sure to thank the judge sincerely, and he shook Mr. Evans’s hand. He was his own man now. No one could send him away, or try to keep him here against his will. And he would never have to worry about hiding his powers in his own home again.

The next evening, he had his first shift at the Crashdown.

He walked in through the employees only door, and Parker greeted him with a smile and a uniform.

Thankfully, his didn’t come with an antenna.

“Welcome to your first day at the Crashdown. I’m about to start my shift, but I’ll be here if you need anything. My dad has a bit of paperwork for you in his office, and then Jose is going to be the one training you.” She leaned closer and whispered, “I’m so glad to see you. Congratulations on getting emancipated. I know it has to be, like, a huge relief.” She straightened and then said, “Good luck, Michael.”

She headed out of the break room and he went ahead and changed into the t-shirt and apron she’d given him. Then he walked over to Mr. Parker’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in!” the man called, and Michael walked into a cozy, dimly lit room. Mr. Parker looked up from what he was working on – from where Michael was standing, it looked like he was trying to balance the account – and then he smiled welcomingly. In that moment, Michael could see the resemblance to his daughter, and he found himself relaxing, having not even realized he had been nervous to begin with. “Oh, Michael. Good. You’re here early.” He took in Michael’s shirt and apron and nodded approvingly. “I see Lizzie has already given you your uniform. I just have a few things for you to sign and then I’ll introduce you to Jose.”

“Before I look at the paperwork, I just wanted to thank you again, sir, for hiring me. I really appreciate you giving me a chance.”

Mr. Parker appraised him briefly, and then his regard warmed from the polite persona he put on for the customers and many of the staff. It was interesting to watch the minute shift in his personality, and to be the cause of that shift. “I can see my Lizzie was right about you. I’m glad you decided to take the job.” He held out his hand to Michael as he had at the end of his interview several days ago. “Welcome aboard, son.”

Michael took it, ignoring that strange tug he felt whenever an older man called him “son”. He knew Mr. Parker didn’t mean anything by it.

After they shook hands, Michael looked over the various forms – the W-2, the payment agreement, and a few others – and then he signed them and handed them over to his boss. Mr. Parker thanked him and put them in a file in one of his desk drawers, to be addressed later, and then he led Michael out to the kitchen to meet Jose.

He and Jose got along surprisingly well – Jose was also a bit of a brat when the moment called for it, and he also had a slightly contentious relationship with one Maria DeLuca, who was less than impressed with Michael’s status as the new short order cook. She let him know in no uncertain terms that she thought he was shady and she took issue with his sudden presence in her life, at which point, her best friend caught his eye apologetically and then dragged DeLuca away.

Aside from one disgruntled waitress, his first shift went pretty smoothly.

He went to the Evans residence at the end of his shift feeling pretty good about things. He had a job that he thought he might actually like. In two weeks, he would have his first paycheck and be able to make the first payment at the apartment Mr. Evans had helped him find.

For once, life seemed pretty good.

It would be damn near perfect if he could actually get some sleep, but he'd take what he could get.

* * *

Mr. Cowan, the art teacher, paused by Michael’s easel and blinked, looking pleasantly surprised. “Have you taken formal art classes at some point, Mr. Guerin?”

Michael stared at the man, nonplussed.

After a beat, he nodded and then muttered, “Right. I suppose not.” By this point, Michael had handed in all of the paperwork from the first day, and he’d had to explain to each of his teachers why, exactly, he had signed the documents himself. “I only ask because your self-portrait is quite well done. The choice of coloring you’ve made is particularly intriguing. It adds a degree of emotional depth that is rare among my first-year students. I’m glad to see you taking a genuine interest in my class, Mr. Guerin.”

Nodding blankly, Michael told him, “Sure, Mr. Cowan.” He’d thought about half-assing the class when he’d first seen it listed on his schedule – because he hadn’t bothered to fill out the form they’d given everyone at the end of freshman year to select his classes for the fall, and so the school counselor had elected to fill it in for him in lieu of tracking him down – but his new commitment to taking his grades more seriously had prevented him. He hadn’t expected for his work to ever be accused of having “emotional depth,” though. The finer points of emotional expression and nuance had never been his strong suit.

As the man walked away, Michael looked down at the sickly reds, blacks, blues, greens, yellows, browns, and purples that dominated the canvas.

Bruise colors.

As the realization hit him, he was tempted to reach up and wipe the entire portrait away. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that Mr. Cowan had already seen it.

A few days later, he found Parker staring up at the portrait solemnly in the hallway. Mr. Cowan had displayed it with several other pieces he had praised from those amongst his first year art classes. He walked up to stand beside her, and she reached out to take his hand.

“Parker-“ She turned and looked at him reproachfully, and he relented. “Elizabeth. It’s too soon.”

“It’s the end of the day, Michael. There’s hardly anyone around. And anyway, they’re going to have to get used to us being friends eventually.” She raised her eyes to the self-portrait again. “It’s beautiful, Michael. Really. But looking at it just makes me so sad for some reason.” She frowned and told him, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I kind of hate it.”

He stood there staring up at the drawing he had done of himself and tried not to feel like he had been laid bare before the entire student population. It was almost as though he had left a part of himself in the piece. “Yeah. Me, too.”

Sucking in a deep breath, Parker tugged on his hand to drag him away. “Come on. If we don’t get going, we’re gonna be late for work.”

“Yeah, well, I hear the boss’s daughter has a bit of soft spot for me, so I should be fine.”

Chuckling at him, she bumped against his side playfully. “Jerk.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that from day one,” he remarked dryly. “You just didn’t listen.”

Sobering, Parker told him, “I listened to you, Michael. I’ll always listen to you. I just happen to know that you’re wrong.”

“Based on what, exactly?”

“You’re just gonna have to trust me.”

“I do.” And it was true. No matter what happened, he knew he could trust her. She may not always be right, but she would always tell him the truth as she saw it. In spite of a lifetime of concealing who he was from everyone – even to Maxwell and Isabel, to some extent – he wished he could return the favor.

A few weeks later, he didn’t have a choice.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had most of this chapter written for about a week, but I've been too tired and busy to put the finishing touches on it. 
> 
> Thank you to those of you who are giving this fic a shot, and for the kudos. Seriously, it's nice to know there's still a few Polar fans left out there, and that you're enjoying this.

On September 18th, Michael’s day started before dawn, as they usually had in the weeks since he moved into his own apartment. His hand shot out from under the covers to swat at the alarm clock Parker had given him as a house-warming gift – the only reason he hadn’t blasted it to pieces already. Well, that, and it did its part to keep his hectic schedule from collapsing in on itself.

He contemplated lying in bed for a few more minutes, but dragged himself out instead. He would fall right back asleep if he wallowed even for a little while on the mattress he’d bought second-hand and then altered to make the springs better and the mattress softer and fuller.

After chugging down two mugs of coffee, spiked liberally with sugar and Tabasco, and what might have been half the remaining box of cereal he’d bought on his last grocery run, he showered and dressed for the day and then spent an hour studying for the first test in Geometry. He and his siblings had always been naturally gifted when it came to academics – if they hadn’t needed to stay under the radar, they could have aced all of their courses and vied for top of their class – but his years of refusing to apply himself were coming back to bite him. He understood the material just fine. He could look at a problem and work it out in his head instinctively; he and his siblings seemed to be predisposed to understanding science and the way the world worked, and math was the language of science. They’d pretty much come out of the pods knowing how to speak it. It was showing his work that he struggled with, and he’d been informed tartly by the Geometry teacher after the first week of the term that if he didn’t show his work, it wouldn’t matter if he got all of the questions right. No proof? No credit. So, now he had to memorize the processes described in the textbook so that he could prove to the teacher that the answers he was turning in were the product of his own work.

It was ridiculous, but so was more than half the crap the teachers had them doing, so he would suck it up and deal. He could probably take the test for his GED right now and pass, but then he wouldn’t be with Max and Isabel, and that was the entire point of staying in this stupid town in the first place.

 _And Parker_ , a traitorous part of his mind added. _Shut up_. He forced himself to focus on studying for a little while longer, and then he headed off towards the school, dreaming of the day when he had enough saved that he could buy himself a bike or a dirt-cheap used car. He honestly didn’t care which, as long as it would keep him from having to walk all over Roswell.

As his legs finally brought him to the outskirts of the campus grounds, a short, dark-haired figure sidled up to him. “I have something for you.”

“Good morning, Elizabeth,” he said dryly.

She waved his words away. “You and I both know you don’t care about pleasantries and small-talk. So, about this thing.” She passed him a small, white, cardboard box and a bottle of Tabasco, wrinkling her nose as he accepted the second offering. “I have no idea why you insist on putting that stuff on everything, but I figured it wouldn’t be much of a treat if you didn’t actually enjoy it, so.” She shrugged as if to say, _it is what it is_.

“Thanks,” he said, stuffing the bottle of hot sauce into one of the pockets of his jeans. She didn’t need to know that he already had one bottle of the stuff tucked away in his bookbag. He took a peek at the contents of the box and actually had to fight off a moan.

She’d brought him a slice of that devil’s food chocolate cake they served at the Crashdown.

“Split it?” he offered, though he would rather keep the whole thing to himself. She didn’t know what a sacrifice it was to even contemplate parting with some of the chocolate heaven contained within that pastry box.

Or maybe she did. She shot him a highly amused look and then shook her head. “That’s okay. I had a few of the left-over doughnuts for breakfast this morning. I’ll probably slip into a diabetic coma if I have any more sugar today.”

“Suit yourself.” They walked over to one of the tables on the quad to sit for the short amount of time left before school started for the day, and Parker produced a fork from – somewhere; seriously, were all girls secretly like Mary-freaking Poppins? – and passed it over. Michael doused the cake liberally with Tabasco and went to work.

It was probably the last piece of the cake, and so it was ever so slightly stale, but it still tasted better than pretty much anything else.

Parker chuckled, and Michael opened his eyes, having not realized he’d closed them in the first place. “Should I give you two some time alone?”

Holding the box closer to himself, Michael retorted, “Yes, actually. This is a very private moment we’re having.”

She snorted at him in a way that was distinctly unladylike, but she was smiling at him, glad to have made him happy. “Yeah, okay.”

Michael saw someone approaching their spot out of the corner of his eye and turned to see whoever it was more fully. It was Whitman, Parker’s gangly geek friend, who eyed Michael every bit as warily as Michael would have been eying him if Michael didn’t have such careful control over his facial expressions. He didn’t mind the geek – he seemed like a decent enough guy – but Michael knew that Whitman wondered, as plenty of other people did, what had brought Michael into Parker’s orbit. His job at the Crashdown could only explain so much. There were a few other students who also had jobs at the diner, and aside from DeLuca, Parker wasn’t particularly close to any of them.

It didn’t help that Parker had abandoned all attempts to be discrete about their friendship about a week ago. She would walk up to him in the halls just to say hello and talk for a few minutes in between the classes they didn’t have together. She voluntarily partnered with him during History and Geometry if they had to do group work. She bantered with him happily through the window between the diner and the kitchen at work when she submitted orders or picked them up.

He’d already had to field several uncomfortable questions from Maxwell and Isabel about what was going on between him and Parker, and as the days went by and she made herself a more and more visible part of his life, he had a feeling the questions would grow more probing and more frequent.

With a nod of acknowledgement to Whitman, Michael turned back to his cake, giving the guy a chance to say whatever had brought him over to talk to Parker this morning.

“Hey, Liz.”

“Hey, Alex,” Parker replied easily.

“Listen, Maria wants to know if we’re still on for the movie tonight after you two finish your shift.”

Parker’s brow furrowed. “So, why didn’t Maria come and ask me herself?” There was a brief moment of silence and then she rolled her eyes. “Seriously? She’s going to have to get over it. You know, I kind of thought we’d established the whole ‘it’s okay to have more than one best friend’ thing back in fifth grade, when I started hanging out with you. And now look at us. We’re like the Three Musketeers.”

Whitman sounded highly uncomfortable when he responded, though Michael refused to look away from his second breakfast to see what sort of expression he was sporting. “Yeah, the thing is, Liz, that Maria never had quite as much animosity towards me as she does towards Michael. No offense,” he added, directing his voice towards Michael.

Michael shrugged. “It’s not exactly news,” he pointed out mildly.

“Right,” Whitman replied, wincing slightly. “So, anyway, are we? Still on, I mean.”

Spreading her hands, Parker told him, “We’re still on.”

“Perfect,” Whitman said. “Cheesy romantic comedy, here we come.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Alex. We let you choose last time, remember? It’s Maria’s turn.”

Whitman glanced at Michael wryly. “Maybe it’s a good thing Maria hasn’t warmed up to you.”

“I’ll let you know tonight after being on another shift with her for hours.”

Whitman winced again. “Good luck, man.”

“Thanks.”

Whitman nodded and then told Parker, “I’ll see you later.”

“See you, Alex,” Parker called back as Whitman began to walk away. She turned back to Michael and noted, “We should probably get to class. The bell is gonna ring any minute now.”

“We could just skip,” Michael replied, all the while knowing that he wouldn’t go through with it. He was giving this whole responsible adult thing an honest try. Maybe someday he and his siblings would get some sort of lead on who they were and where they came from, but until then, Michael was on his own, and as much as other teenagers fantasized about not having any authority figures telling them what to do, the reality of it wasn’t nearly as exciting. He had to be able to make this new life work, and one of the ways he was going to do that was by rehabilitating his reputation and salvaging his GPA so that he could improve his chances for a decent job after graduation. As grateful as he was to have his job at the Crashdown, and as much as he enjoyed it, the pay would not be enough to live on once he turned eighteen, and he needed to have options.

“Yeah, okay,” Parker scoffed lightly. “The day I skip class.”

With a huff of agreement, Michael got up and threw away the cardboard box and the plastic spoon. “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with.”

As she stood, Parker deadpanned, “Really feeling that enthusiasm, Michael.”

“Really?” Michael replied as they began making their way into the main hall. “And I thought I was hiding it so well.”

Parker bumped up against his side in mock reproach, and they headed off to face the day.

All in all, the school day turned out to be mostly bearable. Michael even made it through the Geometry test without wanting to rip his hair out. Much.

He walked to the Crashdown after the final bell, arriving only a few minutes after Parker and DeLuca, who’d taken to driving almost everywhere together as soon as DeLuca got her license. He saw Mr. Parker come out of his office and nodded to the man before going to change into his uniform. “Sir.”

Mr. Parker smiled at Michael, which was a reaction Michael still was not used to provoking in any adult, especially not for something so simple as showing up somewhere he was already expected to be. “Hello, Michael. How are you doing?”

“Alright, Mr. Parker. You?”

“I’m doing just fine. Listen, Nancy and I are going to take care of some business at the bank. You and Jose’ll keep an eye on the girls for us, won’t you?”

Even stranger still, Mr. and Mrs. Parker seemed to trust him. With their daughter.

On one hand, it soothed something jagged inside of him to have someone trust him that much. On the other hand, he couldn’t help feeling slightly guilty. If they only knew what Michael had made their precious little girl party to. Not that she had given him much choice once she found him sleeping on her balcony last month, but he doubted that would make much difference to them if they ever found out.

“Sure, Mr. Parker.”

His boss clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he commended Michael before walking away, presumably to find his wife and head off to the bank.

Michael shook his head and completed the journey to the break room, nodding to Parker and DeLuca as he passed them tying on their aprons and waiting for them to turn away before switching out his collared button-down for a grey Crashdown t-shirt and his own, much more effective apron. He’d been grateful to discover, upon being hired, that no part of his uniform was shiny, skimpy, or made to look like any part of the pop-culture vision of an alien.

When he was presentable, he turned to Parker and asked, “Your parents tell you where they were going?”

“Um, yeah, they did.” She glanced at her best friend. “We should probably get out there before the after-school crowd hits. I think Agnes is taking her smoke break.”

DeLuca gave her a distinctly unimpressed look. “Does she just, like, totally not understand that you have to have actually started your shift before going on break?”

Parker rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Come on, Maria. It’s not like we’ve never had to hold down the fort before.”

“I’m just saying, Liz, that you should consider the fact that Agnes is, like, completely abusing the laws about smokers being able to take longer breaks.”

Michael tuned the rest of DeLuca’s griping about their older co-worker out as he went to join Jose in the kitchen.

“Hey, hermano. I hear you and I are in charge,” Jose.

“Don’t let it go to your head. Besides, you and I know who has all the real power.” He glanced pointedly out the window, towards Parker.

Jose tutted and told Michael, “Don’t spoil all my dreams, man.”

“If you two are done having your little heart to heart,” a tart voice broke in. “I’ve got an order of Saturn Rings, a Will Smith Burger, practically burnt, and a Blue Moon Burger, medium well.”

“Got it,” Michael muttered, taking the order from the blonde hurricane and turning his mind toward the job.

About ten minutes into their shift, Michael glanced toward the door, knowing in that way that he and his siblings sometimes did, that his brother was there. Maxwell felt his gaze and looked towards him, nodding briefly. Then he turned and began to search for something – or some _one,_ rather. Michael followed his gaze, and they both found Parker having a short exchange with her female best friend before the two girls parted ways to go to their sections. Maxwell naturally gravitated towards Parker’s section, and Michael shook his head, refocusing on the onion rings he was supposed to be working on while Jose flipped burgers. With any luck, the alien hunters would find him before the day he mooned so obviously over a chick. Even if she was one of the good ones, like Parker.

A few minutes later, Michael spotted two nuts in town for the upcoming Crash Festival, made obvious by their hopelessly nerdy appearances and the fact that he had never seen them before a day in his life. Aside from the annual influx of tourists, and some trucker-types like the ones having a fairly intense conversation at a table close to the front entrance, nothing much ever changed in the little population of Roswell.

Parker caught sight of the tourists shortly after Michael did, and he saw a Puckish gleam in her eyes. With a smirk, Michael checked on a batch of fries and then looked back up to enjoy the show. A few nights ago, Mr. Parker had given his daughter a lecture on not conning the tourists that had been largely unsuccessful because of his uncontainable amusement. The next day, Parker had confessed to Michael that she had been pulling such stunts since she was a little girl, and every year, her father told her not to, and every year, she got away with it anyway.

He wondered, as Parker finished her little routine and walked away, what the rest of the world would say if they realized how mischievous Parker could be underneath her studious, rule-abiding façade. Then he shook himself out of thoughts of his friend and tried to focus, once again, on the job.

Usually, it wasn’t this hard. Today, though, there was something in the air. A tension that hummed and throbbed. No one else seemed to notice it, so maybe it was just him. His instincts said otherwise, though, and Michael had always trusted his instincts.

His ears perked up at the sound of his brother’s name, and he tried to focus on what DeLuca and Parker were saying, but with the din of the diners, it was pointless, which was probably why DeLuca felt comfortable talking about Maxwell at a normal volume in the first place. He glanced over and found Parker’s face sandwiched between DeLuca’s hands as the girl squeezed Parker’s cheeks.

He was never going to understand that girl.

For a few minutes, Michael managed wrench his mind away from the strange tension in the air and Parker and her weird friend, and to be productive. His newfound focus was wrecked a short while later.

Without warning, the intense discussion between the two men at the front grew more heated, one of the men shouting for the whole diner to hear, and Michael looked on in horror as the man pulled out a gun. Some nameless fear drew his eyes to where Parker was standing, a pit of dread opening up in the pit of his stomach as he caught sight of the frozen look on her delicate face.

In the blink of an eye, there was a deafening bang, followed by a dull, sickening thud as dark hair and mint green fabric and lightly tanned limbs tumbled to the tile floor. Michael’s eyes were stuck for a moment, seeing but not understanding the empty place where Parker used to be standing, and his heart stopped cold in his chest.

 _No_.

 _Not her_.

His heart started back up after a fraction of a second, going double-time to make up for the lapse and then some, and he reacted without thinking.

Unlike the night he killed Hank, his fear worked for him now, rather than against him, sharpening and focusing his powers until they were as deadly and precise as the tip of a spear. (Later, he would realize that the fierce need to protect Parker had overridden whatever mental block he’d had since emerging from his pod. He had simply never cared enough about himself to be able to manage it when he was the one in danger.)

In the moment, he sent Jose into unconsciousness with a twitch of his fingers and then tripped the breakers, plunging the café into semi-darkness, and the people into even more chaos and confusion. The distraction gave his brother time to get over to Parker, and Michael joined him, scooping Parker up and carrying her into the break room. He laid her down on the couch and then went to stand at the door to the dining area, barring entrance to anyone who might realize they were down one well-known waitress.

“Liz!” he heard as he stood sentry, half his mind on keeping everyone else out, half replaying the moment the gun went off, watching Parker’s body collapse again and again. “You have to look at me, Liz.”

For several unbearable moments as he waited and watched what was going on inside and outside of his head, he wondered if moving her had been the right thing to do. It had kept him and his siblings safer, keeping all of this out of the eyes of the public, but what if it had caused the bullet to do more damage? What if moving her was what pushed her body until it was beyond help?

He couldn’t lose her. She was his best friend.

They had barely really been in each other’s lives for a month in any sort of meaningful way, and already, he couldn’t imagine living without her.

“You’re alright now, Liz,” his brother murmured, sounding exhausted. “You’re going to be alright.”

“Fix the dress, Maxwell. And get rid of the blood.” Michael’s voice sounded completely wrecked as it broke the silence of the break room.

“Right,” Max replied. “Good thinking, Michael.” There was something strange in his tone, but Michael chalked it up to the amount of effort he had expended in the past few minutes. Healing took a lot out of him. It was also one of the reasons Maxwell had not thought to do the things Michael had told him to do. Normally, his brother was the most careful out of the three of them, never leaving a trace that someone might find.

“You’ll have to give me a wound,” Parker said, her voice flat.

Michael and Max both whisper-shouted, _“What?”_ and stared at her as though she had lost her mind.

“There is blood out there. My blood. Someone’s going to wonder where that came from.”

“Liz-“

With a determined look on her face, she overrode whatever objection Maxwell was about to offer. “No, I am _right_ about this. It’s the only way to keep people from asking too many questions and getting too close to the truth. Whatever that actually is.”

It made a sick sort of sense. It wouldn’t matter how well they covered things up while they were in here if they left something inexplicable for someone to find out there. Everything had to line up perfectly, or they were screwed.

Parker raised her left hand to find where the bullet had lodged in her stomach and then brought it further to the right, wrapping around her forearm. “Here. It’s just about level with the original wound, so it won’t be too far off from the trajectory of the bullet. You’ll have to make it look like the bullet grazed me here, and add new blood spatters to the dress to make them fit the proper spray pattern.”

“The bullet, Maxwell,” Michael wondered, partially in an effort to avoid thinking about what Parker was telling them to do. “What did you do with it?”

Max looked as ill as Michael felt, but he swallowed it down and replied, “I altered the molecules to match Liz’s blood.”

That was probably for the best, but they still needed a bullet. And they would need to cover it in Parker’s blood.

“Do you remember what it looked like?” Max had not seen it, Michael knew. Not with his eyes, at least. But he would have felt the shape and size and molecular structure of it before he changed it.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget,” he admitted. “Liz,” he said, gazing at her solemnly. “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to go through with it. Neither of us would blame you.”

“I’d blame myself, Max.” She looked from him to Michael. “I may not know exactly what is going on with you two, but I know you both just risked, like, everything, for me. I’m not about to let anything happen to you because of if.”

Maxwell’s jaw worked as he struggled with himself. “I’ll try to keep it from hurting you as much as possible, but you may want to hold onto something.”

Finally starting to look as shaken by this idea as she must have been before she even suggested it, Parker nodded and then stood up, walking to Michael on slightly shaky legs. She stared at him wordlessly for a moment and then buried her face in his chest. She wrapped her left arm around his waist and clenched her small hand in the fabric of his shirt. The other arm she held out to the side.

Her voice was muffled as she ordered Max, who had watched her actions with tight lips and an unfathomable gaze, “Do it.”

Michael placed his hands on her hips to help hold her up, hating this with every fiber of his being.

“Liz, I am so sorry,” Maxwell whispered as he held her arm steady with one hand and put the other above the area where she’d instructed him to place the wound. His hand glowed as the skin of Parker’s arm began to split.

At first, she panted, and then she whimpered, but she refused to cry, and Michael’s heart squeezed in his chest.

When Max deemed the wound convincing, he stopped and allowed it to bleed for a few moments. Then he followed Parker’s instructions about the blood spatter. He took a fork and turned it into a bullet, which he covered in some of Parker’s blood. Then he located the first aid kit with Michael’s help and took out gauze and medical tape, binding the wound.

He took the bullet and walked over to the wall separating them from the no-doubt curious and concerned people in the dining area and put his hand to the wall. It glowed with the same soft light from earlier, and the bullet disappeared from their sight. With any luck, no one was looking when it came through on the other side. “There. That should do it.”

“You should go out the back door, Max,” Parker uttered softly, her voice scratchy and weak with pain. “Wait, no. Go back into the café. Sit back at your table and act relieved. You checked on me, and I’m fine – just a little shaken up, and in a little pain from where the bullet grazed me, and maybe concussed from when I hit my head. And Michael…” her voice trailed off for a moment and then returned more firmly. “Go fix whatever you did to the lights.”

“Elizabeth-“

She pinned him with a steely gaze, and he subsided. “Not now, Michael. There are things that have to be done. Like calling the sheriff’s station, for one thing. A shot was fired. They’ll need to be notified. And I need to call my parents.”

He thought about trying again, but she was right. They all had jobs to do. “Okay.” He looked back at his brother and then let Parker go and moved away from the door, which abruptly swung open, letting in a frantic Maria DeLuca.

“Liz,” she cried, going over to look her best friend over from head to toe. “What happened to you? I thought you might have been – that maybe the bullet had – but it didn’t, right? You’re alright?” All the time that the stream of consciousness flowed from her mouth, her hands were fluttering about Parker’s body, checking for wounds. She stopped when she reached the gauze on Parker’s right forearm, gasping and going pale. “Oh, you’re not! You’re not alright. Liz, you were shot!”

Parker allowed her to go on like this patiently for a moment and then she reached up to gently take DeLuca’s hands. “I’m okay, Maria. I just fell and hit my head on the floor a little hard. The bullet grazed me, and the pain made me pass out for a little while.” She glanced from Michael to his brother. “Michael and Max thought the same thing you did, and they brought me in here so they could check on me, and so I could have somewhere to stay until an ambulance came, if I needed one. But Max patched me up, and I’m okay.”

Nodding her head slowly, DeLuca let out a relieved breath and then pulled Parker into a tight hug. Parker clung to her friend just as tightly, but over the other girl’s shoulder, she stared at Michael and Max with her eyebrows raised. _Well_ , she seemed to say. _Don’t you two have things you should be doing?_

So imperious. He felt a wave of affection and gratitude swell through him as he nodded to her, followed by guilt over listening to her about her proposed ruse. He gritted his teeth against the tangle of emotions and then went to fix the breakers while Max said, “I’m glad you’re going to be alright, Liz. I’m really sorry that this happened to you,” and then turned and walked back out into the dining area, allowing his genuine relief to shine through for the benefit of the café’s patrons.

“Why was Michael blocking the door, Liz?” he heard DeLuca ask as he finished with the breakers and then went to dial 911.

This was a switch. He wasn’t accustomed to being the one to call local law enforcement.

“Well, you know, they didn’t want any nosy customers to come in and bother us while they were checking me over and patching me up.”

“Okay, so why did it take them so long? There’s only so much of you for them to check, and you guys were alone in here for, like, five minutes. It doesn’t take that long to look for a bullet wound or wrap an arm in some gauze.”

“They also checked me for a concussion. And we were all a little freaked out, you know? Especially me. I thought the bullet was going to go right through me. It was really scary. I mean, I could have d- _died_ , Maria.” The earie calm Parker had been working under since Maxwell finished healing her vanished, and she finally burst into tears as reality hit.

Her best friend cooed at her, trying to sooth her even though she was still scared and upset herself.

Michael shook himself and forced his hand to move from where it had frozen over the phone. He picked it up from the cradle and dialed the emergency number, and then he waited for it to be picked up by Dispatch.

He gave the woman on the other end the “facts”. He was an employee at the Crashdown. There was a dispute between two customers. It got heated. A gun went off. Everyone was alright. They didn’t need an ambulance. The two customers had run off.

“We’ll send someone right over,” the woman said, her voice steady and business-like.

“Thank you.” He hung up and then glanced at the two girls, deciding to call Mr. and Mrs. Parker himself. Their daughter had other things to worry about at the moment.

Mr. and Mrs. Parker were beside themselves when he relayed the carefully edited version of the incident to them over the phone. They peppered him with questions about Parker’s wound, and how she seemed, and then they promised they would be there as soon as possible, and thanked him for letting them know. Then the line went dead, and he put the phone back in the cradle. At the same moment, he heard groaning from inside the kitchen, and he grimaced. Jose must have woken up.

The man had seen nothing. Michael was certain of it. He’d been too busy staring with the same horror as everyone else at Parker’s tiny body lying prone on the floor of her parents’ restaurant in the wake of a gunshot.

So, Michael pushed Jose to the bottom of his list of things to worry about and turned back to where Parker and DeLuca were still wrapped around each other. He walked over to them, still drawn to Parker with a protective instinct he didn’t think would die down for a good, long while, and placed one of his hands on her back, below where her friend’s arms clung tightly.

“Your parents are on their way,” Michael said, deciding to lead with that, since that would be infinitely more comforting than the rest. “The sheriff’s department is sending someone over. They’ll probably be here any minute. I’m gonna go check on things at the front. Do you want to wait in here, or do you want to come with me?”

Parker lifted her head from her friend’s shoulder and turned slightly to study Michael, the steady stream of tears beginning to slow their descent from her reddened eyes. The sight of her tear-stained cheeks tugged at him in a way that only Isabel’s typically did, and he fought to shove the wave of tenderness off. Now wasn’t the time. Not when he was about to be faced with bluffing the local law enforcement for the second time in as many months.

With a few sniffles and some worrying at her lower lip, Parker decided, “I’ll go with you. They’re going to want to talk to me anyway, since I’m the one who got,” she caught herself, frowning at the near-slip. “Since the bullet grazed me.”

DeLuca snuffled as well. “Are you sure, Liz? Because you could stay in here until the cops get here. You don’t have to deal with that crowd of diners right now if you’re not up to it.”

“No,” Parker said. “No, I want to go out there. I mean, what’s the point in delaying the inevitable, right?”

“Right. Well, then we should just – just take a minute and wash our faces before we go out there.” DeLuca glanced at him, for once without her usual derision, and told him, “Go on, Michael. We’ll be there in a minute.”

He nodded and then made his way out into the dining area, where things were still chaotic.

Two patrons, especially, were creating a stir. The man was short and stocky, with thick glasses and a boxy face. The woman’s face was plain but had the sort of hippie flair that DeLuca was known for. They were the nerd couple Parker had been conning before everything went belly up earlier. They were pestering Maxwell, asking questions about the pretty young waitress everyone saw get shot, and why he and that other, spikey-haired boy had absconded with her into the break room.

Michael went to shut the inquisition down. They would have to deal with enough of that from the Sheriff’s department. No need to entertain the whims of these overly nosey customers, who were predisposed to see conspiracies and cover-ups in everything already.

“You’re the other boy!” the man crowed when Michael stalked over to the tableau. “So, where is she? Where’s the waitress? Is she still alive? Why did you two-“

“Look, this situation is messed up enough already without you two giving everyone the third degree. She’s still alive, and she’s in no danger of that changing. The bullet just grazed her arm. Now, go back to your table and sit down. The Sheriff’s department is sending someone over.”

“Now, wait a minute,” the man started, the light of curiosity still bright in his eyes. Combined with the toothy grin that seemed to be his default, he looked particularly manic.

“Nope,” Michael said. “I don’t wanna hear it. You two are going to sit down, and you’re not going to bother the waitress when she comes out. AND,” he continued, raising his voice when it looked like the man was going to try to argue with him again, “you are not going to stir the rest of the people in here into a panic by asking things like whether or not she’s still alive. That is the last thing we need right now.”

“But-“

Michael had a good six inches on the squirrely little man, and he used his extra height to his full advantage now. “Go. Sit. Down.”

Finally starting to seem a bit cowed, he sighed and muttered, “Come on, Jennifer.”

Michael stared at their retreating backs with dull satisfaction as the door to the breakroom opened to reveal Parker and DeLuca, both looking slightly more put together than they had been a few minutes ago. Still, they were holding each other’s hands, and they were both visibly paler than they should be, with bloodshot eyes. And there was no mistaking that dressing around Parker’s forearm, marking her as the one who’d been hit, even if everyone else would soon come to believe the lie they’d concocted about the bullet only slicing a small patch of skin as it sailed by and then lodged itself into the wall.

Well, he hoped they would believe it, at least. It would be easier to convince them that their panicked minds had tricked them into seeing the bullet hit her somewhere vital, rather than giving her a wound which should heal within a week or two, than it would have been to convince them that the bullet had not harmed her at all. There was a small pool of blood on the floor of the diner that said otherwise, and there was no doubt in his mind that people had already seen it and known it for what it was – people other than the crazy couple he had just sent slinking back to their seats.

“Thanks,” Maxwell said faintly, his body turned towards the two young waitresses who were coming closer to where they stood, rather than toward Michael. He had no doubt Maxwell was studying them with the same concerned scrutiny as Michael himself.

“Don’t mention it.” He darted a glance at his brother out of the corner of his eye. “I should thank you, too.”

Pulling his gaze away from Parker long enough to glance at Michael, his brother echoed him, the words tinged with irony and something else that Michael couldn’t identify. “Don’t mention it.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry for the delay, but here. You get a long chapter out of the wait.
> 
> The next part will be posted as a separate story in this series, and it may be awhile before it's ready for public viewing, because real life has gotten considerably busier.
> 
> Thank you, those of you who have read and left kudos on this story. I've appreciated having you guys with me as I dust off my writing skills and get back into fics again.
> 
> If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, feel free to let me know!

Talking to Sheriff Valenti was the last thing Michael wanted to do today, but Parker was in the middle of both of her parents, as she had been since the moment the two of them arrived, DeLuca was talking to Deputy Owen in between his attempts to wrangle the two alien nuts, and Maxwell also had his hands full with keeping an eye on their two nosiest customers. He swallowed down all his fears and suspicions about law enforcement and reminded himself that the Sheriff had been surprisingly supportive during the search for Hank. Not once did anyone in his department act as though they suspected Michael was behind Hank’s disappearance. And after Michael explained his reasoning for not wanting to go to another foster home, Sheriff Valenti had even put in a good word for Michael with the judge who had awarded him his emancipation, and told Michael that if he ever needed anything, Valenti would do what he could to help.

Michael fully intended to never take Valenti up on that offer, but it did help to set him slightly more at ease while talking to the man.

“Now, I understand something happened to the breakers?”

Yes, Larry and Jennifer had been eager to share all of the details with the Sheriff and Deputy Owen when they arrived. They were maddeningly insistent about their notion that something alien had taken place at the diner.

Even if they had been wrong, and Michael and his brother were just your average high school friends or good Samaritans, their inability to leave things alone would have made Michael want to slam both of their heads together and get them to shut up already. They had even started trying to search the area near where Parker got shot, which was when Deputy Owen had appointed himself their interim keeper, and Michael was more than happy to let the man take over that particular task, because if he had to deal with them much longer, Michael honestly wasn’t sure what he would do.

They were coming to the end of this interview, or they should be. It felt like Michael had scraped his brain from the inside out, trying to provide the Sheriff details about the moments leading up to the shooting, and keeping everything about where the real bullet had landed tightly under wraps.

Running a hand over his face, trying to emphasize how exhausting all of this was – and it was; now that the adrenaline was fully out of his system, Michael was feeling the full effects of the crash, and he could not wait until he could tell the rest of the world (minus one Parker in particular) to leave him alone for a few hours so he could sleep off this day – Michael muttered, “Yeah, it happens sometimes. We’ve got a lot of appliances running back in the kitchen, you know?”

“Sure, I understand. And you say the other cook – Jose? Passed out?”

Jose was currently resting in the break room, understandably confused about his loss of consciousness. Nobody _else_ had fainted. So, why had he?

Michael only felt a little guilty about knocking him out and then lying about it. Letting his best friend in on the secret to save her life was dangerous enough. They didn’t need to risk anyone else finding out because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Must have been from the shock, you know? It’s not every day your boss’s daughter gets shot. And he’s worked here for years. Known Parker since she was pretty young.”

“But you held it together. You and Mr.-?”

“Evans. Max Evans.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we did. You never know how you’re gonna react in a situation like that until it happens, I guess.”

“Well, you’re right about that, son. Some men can train for situations like this their whole lives, and still not know what they’ll do in the moment. But it sounds like you and Mr. Evans did the best you could with what you had. Now, is there anything else you can tell me? Anything more you can remember about the two men?”

Michael shut his eyes and pictured the shooter and his companion again, trying to see if there was anything he had missed when he gave Valenti their descriptions earlier. Eventually, he let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. He opened his eyes and told the man, “I can’t think of anything more than what I’ve already told you. Trust me, though, I would tell you if I could. The shooter was this close to killing a friend of mine. He shouldn’t be able to just get away with that.”

Valenti sighed. “Well, I’d love to tell you that he won’t, but there’s honestly not a whole lot to go on. It’s not like in the movies, Mr. Guerin. We could look for prints, but other people’s finger prints will be all over whatever he and his ‘friend’ left behind. We could take DNA samples from their drinks and their food, but there’s no guarantee either of them have DNA in the system. And just because we have that bullet, that doesn’t mean the case is closed. Even if we can find a match for the gun, which is unlikely, there’s nothing to say it’s even registered in the gunman’s name.”

Clenching his jaw, Michael told Valenti, “I understand.”

Valenti put a comforting hand on Michael’s shoulder. “I don’t like it either, son, and I hope I’m wrong. But if we don’t find anything that could tell us who they are, I don’t think that man will ever face justice for what he did to Miss Parker. We may have to settle for being grateful that his actions didn’t cost Miss Parker her life.”

“Just promise me you’ll keep trying.” Belatedly, he remembered to add, “Sir.”

“Of course.” He squeezed Michael’s shoulder firmly. “Aside from it being my job, I care about Liz, too. I’ve known that girl since she was a baby. If there’s any chance that I can find the man who did this, then I promise I will make it happen.”

Michael nodded. “Thanks.”

“If you think of anything else, my door’s always open.” With that, the Sheriff let go of Michael’s shoulder and went over to where the Parkers were still huddled together around their daughter, though they seemed to have calmed down considerably from the abject panic when had propelled them all the way across town in half their usual time and through the front door of the diner. Michael was glad to see it. He hadn’t liked the ashen quality of their faces when the two of them had raced inside, searching frantically for Parker. Until the moment they spied her and scooped her up, Michael had been concerned that one or both of them were going to pass out – and aside from not wanting anything to happen to Mr. and Mrs. Parker for their own sakes, he doubted their daughter needed to witness something like that after the day she had already had.

He sat down with Maxwell and kept an eye on all three of the Parkers as they spoke to the Sheriff, needing to make sure they were alright – or at least as alright as they could be, under the circumstances. It would probably be awhile before any of them would be able to move past this, and Michael wondered if they were doing to the right thing. Should they have made it seem as if nothing had happened? Would that have been better, or worse? At least this way, the Parkers knew _something_ had happened to their daughter, and they could be there for her, but they would never know the extent of the damage. They would never know how close they came to losing her. And since that was the case, would their worry over their daughter help her, or hinder her?

Parker glanced over toward where he was sitting, and the look in her eyes – grateful, curious, affectionate, and yet frustrated all at once – arrested his thoughts until she looked away.

“So, this is what it’s like,” Maxwell said, dragging Michael’s attention from where his friend and her parents were standing.

“What?”

“Watching someone who can’t take his eyes off of Liz Parker.” That same indefinable look was back on his brother’s face again, and Michael was really beginning to hate it. Maxwell had been acting off ever since he healed Parker, and while Michael had initially chalked it up to the trauma of watching a childhood crush get shot and then having to be the one to take her life into his hands, he was beginning to realize that there was more to it.

Deciding to call him on it, Michael told him, “Whatever you’re implying, Maxwell, you’re wrong. And I don’t know what’s got your panties in a twist, aside from the obvious, but whatever it is, it would be really great if you could get over it.”

“No, Michael, I don’t think I am wrong. And if I seem upset, I’m pretty sure I have a right to be. I saw things. When she and I were connected. And the things I saw don’t make sense.”

Glancing around, Michael muttered, “Not here. Whatever it was you think you saw, we are not discussing it around all these people.”

“Fine. But we are going to talk about it.”

Michael grimaced. His brother was using _that tone_. The one that was downright paternalistic and that drove Michael up the wall. “Whatever you say, Maximillian.”

* * *

Eventually, Valenti and Deputy Owen left, and Max had no more reason to stay, which was almost a relief for Michael. His brother walked over to where Parker was still leaning against her father and told her, “I’m glad you’re alright, Liz.”

She nodded. “Thank you for helping me. I know it was just a graze, but you know, the whole thing was, like, really scary, and I’m just really lucky you and Michael were here. And really grateful. I don’t know what I would have done without you two.” The words sounded innocuous enough, though they were clearly sincere. It was the look in her eyes which told Michael that she was talking about more than the moment when Maxwell saved her life.

Parker was glad that Max and Michael were the way that they were, and she was glad to know them.

The realization caused something inside of Michael – some aching, yearning part that had been there since he first understood that he was an outsider and always would be – to settle and lose its keenness. He still did not fit into this world, and he doubted he ever would, but he did feel less alone. Because Elizabeth Parker knew – or at least had every reason to suspect – his other closely guarded secret, the one that set him apart from everyone on this planet but his brother and sister, and she wasn’t running and screaming. She was _glad_.

“Yes, thank you for helping our daughter,” Mr. Parker said, reaching out to shake Maxwell’s hand.

“Really,” Mrs. Parker added, “we can’t thank you enough for being there for our baby girl.”

Parker winced ever-so-slightly, and the sight made Michael’s lips turn up a little at the corners, in spite of everything. He knew how much she hated it when her mother called her that.

His brother looked slightly bashful and overwhelmed. Michael could sympathize. Being the focus of positive attention from any of the Parkers tended to be intense, especially when he and his siblings weren’t used to being the focus of anyone’s attention – with the notable exception of Mr. and Mrs. Evans, for Max and Isabel. “I didn’t really do that much, Mrs. Parker.”

“You and Michael took care of her when we couldn’t. You may not understand this now, Max, but someday you’ll realize that for a parent, that means the world.”

“I don’t really know what to say,” Maxwell admitted shyly.

Mr. Parker took pity on him. “Just say ‘you’re welcome’, Max.”

With a little smile, Maxwell agreed. “You’re welcome.” After a beat of silence, he added, “I should probably get going. I’m sure my family is starting to wonder where I am.”

“Okay,” Parker agreed easily. “See you tomorrow, Max.”

“See you tomorrow, Liz. Goodnight, Mr. Parker, Mrs. Parker.”

Parker’s parents replied in kind, and then it was only the two of them, DeLuca, Parker, and Michael left. Jose’s girlfriend had come to pick him up a little while ago, since no one wanted to risk Jose driving himself anywhere after his recent loss of consciousness. Michael was fairly certain there shouldn’t be any damage from what he had done to his co-worker, but he felt better knowing that the man would have someone with him this evening, just in case something went wrong.

Thinking about Jose spending the evening with his girlfriend reminded him of something, and he glanced from Parker to her female best friend before saying, “Someone should call Whitman. Unless you two are still planning to have your movie night tonight.”

Parker put her hand to her forehead. “That’s right. I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

“To be fair,” replied her dippy friend, “we both did, but we had, like, the most legitimate excuse for forgetting that anyone’s had, ever.”

“Yeah, I guess we did. I’ll go give Alex a call.”

Everyone else present tensed almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and Parker looked at them all oddly. “What’s wrong?”

“I think we’re all just a little reluctant to let you out of our sight, Lizzie,” Mr. Parker said when it became obvious that the rest of them weren’t going to answer her question.

Parker’s eyes widened and then she rushed to reassure everyone. “Oh. No, guys, look, I am _fine.”_ She held up her arm, trying, and failing, to hide a small grimace as she did so. The movement must have caused the skin to pull a little. “This is nothing, okay? It’s just a scratch, and you know what? I doubt it will even leave that much of a scar. I’m just going to step away for a few minutes to let Alex know Maria and I are going to need a raincheck, and then I will be right back.”

DeLuca sidled up to her and looped an arm through her uninjured one. “I’ll just go with you, since we’re both asking for a raincheck.”

For a moment, it looked as though Parker would object to what looked like it would be the first of many acts of hovering in the foreseeable future, but she must have seen something in her friend’s face, because ultimately, she nodded. “Um, yeah, you know, you’re probably right. I bet Alex will want to hear from both of us once he knows what happened, so that he can be sure we’re okay.”

Michael started to clean up when the two girls began to walk away. Previously, none of them had entertained the presence of mind to start clearing away the messes left behind when most of the customers beat a hasty retreat earlier.

“Here, son, let me help you with that,” Mr. Parker said, coming over to stand near him and start gathering up baskets. It was a little strange, watching his boss bus tables. The man would clean things – he hated having a messy diner – but it was always somewhat incidental. As he was walking by a table after talking to a customer, or while he was standing behind the counter, he would whip out a clean towel and wipe up a spill, or he would pick up the little red baskets to be cleaned and used again later. But usually he left the bulk of the cleaning to his staff and focused more on the managerial side of things. Having him work alongside Michael, doing something so mundane, was slightly disconcerting.

“That’s alright, Mr. Parker,” Michael said as he added another basket to the pile in his arms. “I’ve got it.”

“Michael,” his boss said seriously, “I need to do this.”

He stopped and met Mr. Parker’s kind but stern blue gaze, and considered the man for a beat. Then he nodded and turned away. “Okay, Mr. Parker.”

Mrs. Parker got up and grabbed the broom and dustpan and joined them, and that was how Parker and DeLuca found the three of them a few minutes later. The two girls blinked at the sight, and Michael felt a little better to know that he was not the only one thrown by having both of the owners with their sleeves rolled up.

Parker raised her eyebrows and then suggested, “Well, since it looks like this place will be clean in a few minutes, why don’t we finish off that coconut cream pie Maria’s mom delivered yesterday? And I think we’ve still got half of a blackberry pie that needs to be eaten, too.”

“Pie for dinner, Liz?” Mrs. Parker asked doubtfully, and then she looked around at everyone, taking in their anxious, worn-out expressions. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, why not? We can even break out the ice cream, since you girls were planning to have that with Alex this evening, anyway.” She cast her gaze about the diner and then added, “But not here. I think we’d all be more comfortable in the apartment tonight.”

“If we’re having a junk food night, I wouldn’t say no to some fries and onion rings,” DeLuca said pointedly.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Yeah, alright. I guess that can be arranged.” He was only caving into her wishes because her eyes were all puffy and red from crying, and because as much as the two of them argued with each other, they would always have one thing in common: the way that they both cared for Parker.

And that was how, in spite of his earlier desperation to get away from everyone other than Parker, Michael found himself eating dinner in the Parker family’s apartment once again, though this would be the first time Mr. and Mrs. Parker knew about it. The entire evening should have been uncomfortable, but Parker’s parents, aside from staying unusually close to her, were their usual kind selves, and DeLuca was too subdued to exercise her famous barbed wit. Added to that, Michael was grateful to be able to spend more time around Parker before he had to go home for the night. Seeing her smiling slightly and talking and just breathing was such a relief that he probably would have stayed even if things with the rest of their little gathering had been strained and awkward.

Eventually, though, it was time to leave. He and DeLuca both dragged their heels about it, but the three of them still had school tomorrow, so Mr. and Mrs. Parker finally had to gently put their feet down and kick them out.

He watched Parker say a slightly teary goodbye to DeLuca, and then she walked straight up to Michael and into his arms, completely disregarding the fact that her parents were sitting on the couch only a few feet away.

Granted, Parker had probably hugged Whitman in front of both sets of their parents a thousand times over the years, but she had never done so with Michael.

Whatever. If she wasn’t going to make a big deal of it, then he wouldn’t either. It felt good to hold her and feel that she was still here, and not while supporting her so that his brother could slit her arm open. He held her a little tighter and threw that memory into the same place as he stored the night he killed Hank.

“You’ll call me if you need anything,” he murmured lowly enough that her parents wouldn’t hear it. It wasn’t a question.

She nodded. “Uhuh.”

“I’ll probably drop by anyway.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Parker replied, the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice reminding him that there was still a conversation that they needed to have.

“Right.” He pulled away and then said goodbye to her parents, who were starting to look more intrigued by his interactions with Parker than Michael was strictly comfortable with. “See you tomorrow,” he called as he walked out the door.

It was almost 9:00pm by the time he reached his apartment, and even though he knew he had homework to do, he planned to relax with his copy of _Ulysses_ for a little while before returning to the Parkers’ place. His brother had other ideas.

When Michael flipped on the lights in the apartment, he found Maxwell leaning against the counter in his kitchen, with his arms crossed and a grim look on his face.

Michael sighed and turned around to shut and lock the front door behind himself. “Alright. What is it you think you saw?”

“I don’t _think_ I saw anything, Michael. I did see it. A lot of it.” He paused and then added, “And by it, I mean you. Her head is full of you. So, tell me, Michael. What the hell were you doing in Liz’s bed? And why does Liz seem to think Hank Guerin is dead?”

“Of course you would care more about the first part,” Michael noted, rolling his eyes so hard they were in danger of permanently lodging themselves backwards in his eye sockets. “And for your information, Maxwell, all we did was sleep. Not that you would have any right to be upset about it if we had done anything else. It’s not my fault that you’ve been in love with her since we were kids and you still haven’t told her how you feel.”

“Isn’t it, though? At least a little? Or am I remembering a different brother who always insisted that we could never trust humans or let ourselves get too close to them?”

“You’re seriously blaming me for the fact that you never worked up the guts to have a conversation that lasted longer than five seconds with the girl you’ve been panting after since before our hormones kicked in?”

“No, but I never thought my own brother would decide to date her.”

He was one wrong word from kicking Maxwell out of his apartment. “Newsflash, Maxwell: if you’re not going to date her, you don’t get to stake some kind of claim on her, either. She is way more than your obsession with her. And even if that wasn’t the case, it wouldn’t matter, because she and I aren’t dating. We’re just friends.”

“For now. I told you earlier, Michael. I know what it looks like when you can’t take your eyes off of Liz.” When Michael chose not to react to Maxwell’s statement, his brother seemed to decide that he had gotten as far as he could on the subject, and he changed tacks. “Why does she believe that Hank is dead?”

“Because Hank is dead, Maxwell. I killed him.”

* * *

As Michael made the walk back towards the Crashdown, he replayed the rest of the conversation with his brother in his head, which had gone about as badly as he might have expected, if he had known the full extent of what his brother had seen earlier in his connection with Parker. Maxwell had been shocked, of course, and had wanted Michael to go over every excruciating detail behind Hank’s death, all the while wearing a look that was a mixture of compassion and rebuke that only he could pull off.

When Maxwell’s curiosity had been satisfied on that point, he had asked Michael, “Why didn’t you come to me? Or Isabel? You know we would have helped you, Michael.”

“Think about it, Maxwell. Your parents are lawyers. If I had gone to you and Isabel, you would have wanted to go straight to them. But if they helped someone cover up a homicide, and somebody found out about it, they could both lose their license to practice. Then there goes your comfortable life in middle America. And more importantly, I was trying to protect you two. One wrong word at the wrong time, and the police would have been all over us. By not telling you two anything, I was able to keep you safer.”

“The thing is, Maxwell, I don’t think that’s the part that you’re really upset about in all this,” Michael had added. “I think what really pisses you off is that I got Elizabeth involved. But here’s the thing about that: I didn’t involve her. She involved herself. If you seriously believe that anyone has any control over what that girl does, you don’t really know her at all.”

“Her name is Liz,” his brother had said, completely ignoring what Michael had pointed out, most likely because he knew that Michael was right.

“Not to me.”

They had gone around in circles for a good while after that, but Maxwell finally gave up and went home, because he was barely going to make it back before curfew kicked in as it was.

Which was why Michael was being extremely cautious as he walked back to see Parker. It was also the reason he had his bookbag for school, along with a clean t-shirt and underwear for tomorrow. His jeans, at least, would be fine for another day. But after he made it to the Parker residence, he didn’t plan to go back out again until morning. For the moment, the local law enforcement seemed to have decided Michael was alright, and he would prefer to keep it that way for as long as possible.

He managed to reach the ladder leading up to the balcony without any major issues, and he climbed up as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who probably would not be sleeping very soundly for the next few days, at least. Parker was sitting on her balcony chair, waiting for him. She had her blanket wrapped around her shoulders over a pair of burgundy sweatpants and a thin, grey tank top which showed off her bandaged arm starkly and which was not nearly enough for the Roswell night air.

Shaking his head in exasperation, Michael told her, “Get inside before you freeze to death, Elizabeth. You’ve had enough close calls for one day.”

She paled slightly, and Michael cursed himself for not being more careful. On any other day, he could get away with saying pretty much whatever went through his head, but after what happened this afternoon, he really should think before speaking. Regardless, Parker got up and climbed into her bedroom.

Michael followed and offered a gruff, “Sorry.”

Waving her hand as if to swat the moment away, Parker dismissed it. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t just let me off the hook. And please don’t try to pretend that you’re alright with everything that happened today. I know you’ve had to get used to keeping a lot of things to yourself, and I know that it’s because of me, and I’m sorry, alright? Because you’ve never had to be closed off like I have, and I know it’s probably been really strange to get used to. But you don’t have to hide anything around me.” She had to know that she didn’t have to be so strong all the time. Not around him. She had let him cry all over her when she barely knew him. If there was anyone she could let go and be emotional or vulnerable around, it was Michael.

She pursed her lips, but instead of responding to what he had said, she took note of the bookbag slung over his shoulder. “You’re staying?”

“If that’s okay with you.”

“I kind of hoped that you would, actually. I don’t want to be alone right now.” Her words allowed him to let go of some of the tension he had been holding onto because they meant that she wasn’t shutting him out. She tilted her body away from him, towards the bed. “Come on.”

He set down his bookbag and followed her over to her bed, taking off his shoes before he sat against the headboard and held out his arm for her to curl up against his side. She rested her head against his shoulder and let the peace they always seemed to find around each other wash over them for a little while.

The last of the tension Michael had been carrying around since Parker was shot eased from having her so near and knowing that he did not need to let go of her any time soon. He let his head rest against the crown of her own and sighed.

When she finally broke the silence, Parker said, “So. You and Max Evans, and I’m just guessing here, but probably his sister Isabel, too. What’s the story there?”

“That big brain of yours hasn’t already figured it out? What kind of nerd are you, Elizabeth?”

She swatted his thigh lightly. “Jerk. I’ve had a few things to wrap my head around today, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Trust me when I say I am never going to be able to forget about what happened today,” he replied darkly.

“Yeah. Me, neither.” She nudged him a bit with her elbow and said lightly, “I haven’t failed to notice that you never answered my question, by the way. You’re not as smooth as you think you are.”

He huffed something that might have been considered a laugh on any other day, when he wasn’t so drained by everything that had happened. “I am incredibly smooth. It’s not my fault you can’t appreciate genius when you see it.”

“Michael. Stop ducking the question.”

Letting out a sigh, Michael told her, “Maxwell, Isabel, and I came out of these incubation pods in the desert about ten years ago. There’s no way to know for sure how long we were there in the pods, but we think we may have arrived in 1947.” He felt Parker stop breathing for a moment, and he waited to go on until she sucked in another breath. “We looked like six-year-olds, so that’s what all the adults assumed we were, even though none of us could speak, or understand any of the basic concepts most children that age had already grasped. The Evanses drove up, and Max and Isabel went to them, hand in hand. But I didn’t trust them. They were strangers. And they were big, and made strange noises, and they drove something that was even bigger, and made even stranger noises. So, I hid and watched the only family I had disappear.”

“I didn’t seem them again for a few years, even after I was found and dropped into Social Services’ lap. I kept running away from the people they would place me with, trying to find my siblings, and they kept catching me and placing me with somebody else. Eventually, I got stuck with Hank, and it was all worth it, because I finally found them. I didn’t even know their names, or know how their faces would have changed in the years that we were apart, but the moment I saw them again, I knew. And they knew me, too. We swore to each other that day that we would never tell anyone what we were. Being separated had been horrible, but eventually, we were together again. The thought of how it would feel if someone found out about us and separated us permanently – killed one or each of us – was enough to keep us quiet for six years.”

He tilted his head so that he could press a kiss to her temple and then settled again. “But then you got shot today. You got shot, and my brother healed you, and then you let yourself be hurt again just so that you could protect us. I wish – I wish the boy that came out of that pod ten years ago could have known that there was someone out there like you. Because maybe if he had known, then things would have been different.” Michael decided he was going to blame his rare bout of verbosity on the exhaustion. There was no way he would have said so much about how he felt about everything under normal circumstances, even to Parker.

He waited to see what she would say. Aside from that brief moment where she stopped breathing there at the beginning, Parker had not reacted to his words at all. “So. So you’re really some kind of alien, or something? And Max and Isabel are, too?”

“Yep.”

“You said you came out of the pods, and it was just the three of you?” she checked.

He hummed an affirmative instead of repeating himself.

“So, you don’t even really know who you are, or where you come from, or why you were brought here, do you?” He felt her shaking her head slowly under his own. “I can’t even imagine having such a huge question mark hanging over my entire existence. It must be so… scary, and frustrating, and just really, incredibly lonely.”

He squeezed her gently. “Not so much anymore.”

“Well, good. I’m glad.” After a beat, Parker said, “Um, you should know, when I looked at the place where I got – um, when I looked at my stomach in the mirror earlier, there was this silver handprint on it. What Max did to heal me… it left a mark.”

“A silver handprint? Really?”

“Really.” She pulled away for a moment to show him, and examined the stunned expression on his face. There it was, shimmering faintly against her lightly tanned, otherwise unblemished skin in the moonlight that was the only light currently shining in the room. She let him look for a little bit longer, and then she pulled her tank top down and curled up against his side again.

“I’m guessing that’s not what usually happens when you do the things you can do?”

“No, it isn’t.” Nothing the three of them had ever done had left anything incriminating behind before now. He wondered why healing Parker was different, and if it was something they needed to worry about. He didn’t anticipate that Maxwell would need to heal people’s bullet wounds on a regular basis, but there may be other things that the three of them could do that would cause them to leave a mark.

She pressed closer against him. “What does that mean? Is that bad? Did something go wrong?” Her voice cracked on the last word.

Needing to reassure her, he rushed to say, “No. I don’t think so, anyway. Maxwell is the best out of the three of us at healing things, and he wouldn’t have stopped until all the damage had been repaired. Maybe it’s just because he’s never had to heal something so substantial before.” His arm tightened around her reflexively. “I’m not going to lie to you, Elizabeth. It was close. If Max hadn’t been there… Let’s just say that I’m really glad he has a hard time staying away from the Crash.”

She gulped, but instead of dwelling on her near death further, she asked, “Why is that, anyway? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I happen to think the diner is pretty great. It is how my parents keep a roof over our heads, after all. And I know Roswell is a small town, but there’s still other places Max could haunt that aren’t so blatantly making money on – well, on your history. I’d say he comes so often because you work there, but you’ve only been working there for a few weeks.” She waited for a few beats, and when he didn’t respond, she asked, “Michael?”

“Look, if I tell you, then things with me and Maxwell are gonna be even more tense than they are already.”

“Why are things between you and Max tense? And what could possibly be bigger than the three of you being aliens?”

He hesitated, knowing that what he was about to tell her would probably be unsettling. But she trusted him, and not only had she indicated earlier in the day that she was grateful for whatever strange circumstances had allowed him and his brother to intervene and save her life, and also having Michael in her life, period, she also had been completely accepting of the truth behind those circumstances when he shared it with her a few minutes ago. She could handle this, too. Before she could prompt him again, he sucked in a deep breath and told her slowly, “When he heals people, if it’s for something more than a scrape or a bruise, Max has to form a connection with them. It’s why he told you that you had to look at him, and it’s what allows him to sort of see and feel what needs to be done. When we connect with people, we can see and feel things. Things that those other people have seen and felt.”

“Are you – are you actually telling me that he read my mind?” She sounded a little spooked, and Michael wasn’t sure if the answer he had for her would soothe her or spook her even more.

“No, we can’t read minds. It’s not like that. And we can’t pick and choose what we see. It’s more like we get these flashes of memories, along with the feelings that go along with them.”

She took a few moments to digest that. “Okay. So, Max Evans saw some of my memories. If he saw something he didn’t like, shouldn’t I be the one he has a problem with?”

“Normally, yeah.”

“Normally,” she echoed. “Okay, so help me out here, Michael. What did he see?”

“He saw us laying down together. That’s the one he mentioned specifically, but apparently he saw a lot of other memories of the two of us, too.”

There was a moment of silence in which he could practically feel her confusion over what she must have perceived as something seriously lacking in relevance. “Okay, that’s pretty personal, but that still doesn’t explain why he got upset about it.”

His voice flat, Michael told her, “He also found out about what I did to Hank.”

Her entire body stiffened. “Is he going to tell anyone? Is he trying to make you tell someone? Michael, there has got to be a way to keep him from saying something. You’re finally free and getting to have some peace. We’ve _got_ to convince him to stay quiet.”

“Relax. He’s not going to turn me in. For one thing, even if he did, there’s nothing left for anyone to find. And for another thing, we do everything we can to avoid getting on the government’s radar. There’s no way he would risk drawing that much attention to the three of us.”

“But he did. You _both_ did. Michael, when you two saved me, you risked the truth about you getting out. You risked your _lives_.” She was silent for a moment and then she murmured, “Maybe you would have been better off just letting me go.”

 _“No.”_ Even the thought of it made everything within him rebel. It took him right back to that moment when every single cell, every atom screamed _not her_. “No, I could never do that. Maybe, if all of this had happened before, when I didn’t really know you. Maybe I would have tried to stop him from saving you. But even then, I don’t think I would have tried very hard.” Because even if she had never found him sleeping on that chair on her balcony and taken him into her room and into her life while asking nothing in return, she would still have been a girl. A very bright, young girl, who had a reputation for being kind and funny, if a bit too much on the bookish side, and had so much life in her that people couldn’t help but be drawn in by it. A girl who was far too young to die.

Michael had been dedicated to keeping the secret of who and what he and his siblings were since the three of them came out of their pods. He had lived through and done things that he would not wish on anyone, all in the name of protecting himself and the only two people in the world he could honestly say he loved. But as determined as he was to keep his family safe, he did not believe that he would be able to stand by and let an innocent girl die, even if the cold, logical part of himself insisted that he should.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I know you, Michael. Sometimes it feels like I’ve known you forever, even though we’ve only been friends for a month. But finding out about your past doesn’t change what I know about who you are as a person, and the Michael Guerin I know could never just stand by and let someone get hurt. Not if they didn’t deserve it.” She let her words sink in for a moment and then she told him, “And just so you know, I meant what I said this morning. You are one of my best friends. My very best friend. I can’t even imagine not having you in my life, not knowing you the way that I do now.”

“You’re my best friend, too, Elizabeth.” He breathed a single, small laugh. “I’m really glad you found me on your balcony that day.”

“Me, too.” Her words were heartfelt but tinged with drowsiness, and he pulled away from her gently and started to slide her under the covers. Once he had her situated, he slid in beside her and wrapped himself around her small frame.

“Let’s get some sleep. Maxwell may have healed you, but you still had a pretty hard day, and we have school in the morning.”

Snuggling more firmly against him, she murmured, “’Mkay. G’night, Michael.”

“Goodnight, Elizabeth.”

* * *

It would have been nice to be able to say that the exhaustion from the day afforded him a solid night’s sleep. That the two of them woke up the next morning to the sound of Parker’s alarm clock going off, with no memory of their dreams from throughout the night. It would have been nice, but it also would have been a lie.

They took turns waking each other up with their whimpering or their tossing and turning, and around 4:00am, they both gave up and sat up against the headboard, huddling together and waiting for the sun to begin to rise. There were dark circles under their eyes, and they both looked haunted by the things they had witnessed in the waking and sleeping worlds in the past twenty-four hours. The only good thing was that they were able to go through it together. As much as Michael would have preferred to avoid waking Parker up with his nightmares, that would have prevented him from being there to comfort her after her own, so he figured he would take what he could get.

As the sky finally began to lighten outside her bedroom window, Parker mumbled, “Can’t we just skip today?”

He groaned, wishing he could believe for even a second that she was serious. Screw him turning over a new leaf. Skipping a day of school never hurt anyone. In fact, that sounded like the best idea he had heard in while. And yet… “As great as that sounds, you know you don’t really mean it. You love school. Nerd.”

“Jerk. I just seriously don’t think I can face all the questions people are going to ask, you know? This,” she started, holding up her wounded arm, “isn’t exactly subtle. I still maintain that it was a better idea than just trying to deny the whole thing, but it just means I’m going to spend the whole day – possibly the next few weeks, actually – feeling like I’m stuck in a giant fishbowl.”

“At least you only have to deal with the rest of the student body gossiping about you and asking dumb questions,” he replied with dawning horror as a thought struck him. “I have to deal with Isabel.”

Parker cringed on his behalf. “How angry do you think she’ll be?”

“They’re gonna have to add a new number to the Richter scale to measure how catastrophic that conversation is gonna be.”

“Yikes. You know, I’d offer to be there when you talk to her, but I’m guessing that would only make things worse.”

He huffed a fatalistic laugh. “Don’t do me any favors, Elizabeth.”

The alarm finally started beeping, and Parker sighed as she pulled away from him and went to go shut it off. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”

She made a face at him playfully. “Bite me, Michael.”

“Sure. Where?”

“Ugh!” She grabbed her pillow with her good side and swatted him with it, but as she put the pillow back down on the bed and began walking away to get ready for the day, a small grin played at the corners of her lips.

Michael got up off of the bed and went to look in Parker’s vanity, and promptly winced at the bird’s nest on top of his head. He turned away to go through his bookbag and pull out the t-shirt and clean boxers, changing quickly while Parker was in her closet, trying to decide what to wear for the day. Then he turned back to the vanity and ran his fingers through his hair. He was no Isabel, nor did he have any desire to be, but thankfully he could at least manage to get his hair into the usual spikes.

Parker emerged from her closet with the different parts of her outfit for the day in her arms. She paused before heading into her bathroom for her shower. “What do you think about grabbing breakfast at the coffee shop? I could tell my parents you asked to go with me there last night, and you could ‘pick me up’.”

With a shrug, he told her, “Works for me. I don’t know if your parents will go for it, though.”

She grimaced at the reminder of how protective everyone had been since the shooting – including Michael himself, and he was not about to apologize for it. “Oh, yeah. No, you’re right. Well, how about I tell them I asked you to have breakfast here, then?”

“Sure. I’ll just go for a walk while you get your shower.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Parker agreed before disappearing into the bathroom.

He pulled on his shoes and grabbed his bookbag, and then climbed out through the window, onto the balcony. For a moment, he stood and watched the familiar view of the sun as it tried to climb a little further into the sky. It was strange how everything and nothing had changed in the past month. He answered to no one other than himself. He had a job. He had a best friend.

He had killed Hank.

His best friend was shot and nearly killed, and now she knew his secret, because his brother had healed her.

And yet he was still tethered to Roswell by his brother and sister – and Parker, now, too. He was still hiding who he was from the world at large. He still had no idea who had sent him and his siblings there, or why they had been abandoned in the desert for forty years.

The sounds of the water running in the bathroom drifted to his ears, and he made his way to the ladder, climbing down to the sidewalk below. If he was going to be able to look Mr. Parker in the eye from across the table this morning, he needed to be anywhere but here while his daughter was only a room away, taking a shower. She was his best friend, but he was also a young, healthy male, with a vivid imagination. Once had been bad enough, and that was before he knew Mr. Parker on a personal level.

* * *

They made it through breakfast with Mr. and Mrs. Parker without incident, aside from a few curious looks they had to field from the two adults every now and then. Then it was time for school, and they made the walk over to their campus together, Parker having called DeLuca earlier and told her that she didn’t need a ride today.

The curiosity of her parents turned out to be nothing when compared to the student body. She pressed close against his side under the scrutiny of all the other teenagers, and pulled her red plaid shirt tighter around herself. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and stared a few of the more obnoxious people down until they thought better of coming over to ask about the shooting.

Parker was not an overly self-conscious person, but she was a teenage girl, and all the probing looks from their peers were clearly getting to her. The last thing she needed was for people to start pestering her with questions about something she would love to be able to forget.

“What do you say to skipping our lockers and just heading straight to first period?”

“Sounds good to me,” Parker said fervently.

They made their way to their first class of the day and settled in to wait for the room to start filling up.

That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. Parker stayed glued to his or DeLuca’s or Whitman’s side, depending upon who was available at any given time. She stopped chafing at their hovering fairly quickly, since they were perfectly willing to run interference with everyone else. Most of the people who wanted to talk to Parker had good intentions, but their good intentions did not change the fact that Parker did not wish to relive yesterday over and over again. Then there were the Pam Troys of the world, who acted concerned to her face and then circulated the idea that the entire story was made up so that Parker could get some attention.

No one whose head wasn’t lodged firmly up his own ass believed Troy one bit, but the rumor wasn’t helping Parker’s emotional state, or Michael and DeLuca’s tempers. For once, he and the little blonde hurricane were on exactly the same page.

Eventually, it was time for lunch, which also meant it was time to face Isabel. They had History together, but they had never had an opportunity to talk – largely because Michael had ensured it. Now, though, he was going to have to let his sister say her piece. He met her and their brother at her locker and the three of them headed out to the parking lot before driving to a little taco stand not far from school.

Isabel’s jaw was clenched the entire ride over, and she only had a smile for the lady working behind the counter. When the three of them had their tacos in hand, they settled at one of the wooden tables, and Isabel finally let loose. “How could you? Both of you? What Max did was reckless, and it put all of us at risk, so he’s definitely not off the hook, but what you did – Michael, I don’t for a second believe that you hurt Hank on purpose, but to just not tell us about it! I would have helped you the _minute_ you told me you needed me. You’re my brother. Don’t you know I would do anything for you? You are not as alone as you always tell yourself you are.”

Michael stared down at his lunch, not quite managing to muster his appetite anymore. He frowned and made himself eat anyway. The tacos may have been cheap, but he still paid for them out of his own pocket, so he wasn’t about to let them go to waste. Then again, he didn’t like to waste food in general.

“And you. Using your powers on Little Miss Scientist? Twice? And then talking about what we can do in front of her? What are we going to tell her now?” It was dead silent at their table for a few beats, and she looked from one boy to the next, finally landing on Michael. “You’ve already told her, haven’t you? I cannot believe you! You don’t tell your own brother and sister when you -” she glanced around nervously and lowered her voice, remembering abruptly that they are not as alone as they should be for this discussion, “have a bad fight with your guardian, but the moment you have an excuse, you tell Liz Parker about all three of us? Why, Michael? Why is it so easy for you to tell her the truth – about Hank, about us – when you barely tell us anything at all?” She shook her head, losing all of her anger. In its place was an aching sadness she should have been too young to understand. “Sometimes you make loving you really difficult, you know?”

The last few bites tasted about as flavorful as the sand all around them, but he forced them down and then stood to throw away his trash. “Let’s go.”

They headed back for the second half of the school day, though they didn’t make it all the way there without incident. The sheriff pulled them over and gave his usual spiel for the twenty-one and under crowd in Roswell about watching their speed, asked how Parker was doing today, and then let them go.

Michael made a beeline for Parker’s locker as soon as he set food in the building. She was there with DeLuca and Whitman, but the moment she caught sight of the stony look on his face, she glanced between her other friends and told them, “Um, guys? I’ll see you later, okay?”

She grabbed Michael’s hand and dragged him into the nearest open door that didn’t lead to a classroom or a bathroom.

“The janitor’s closet, Parker? I never took you for that kind of girl.”

“Shut up,” she huffed, pulling the door shut and then wrapping her arms around his waist and putting her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested his head on top of hers. “I take it that it didn’t go well?”

“No, it pretty much sucked.”

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like it wasn’t expected, and at least I’m not the only screwup this time, according to Isabel.”

Parker let out an unimpressed sound at that last part.

“What?”

He could just tell that Parker was making that face that she always made when she was about to say something she didn’t actually believe in order to avoid making someone uncomfortable. “No, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

She should know by now that what worked on other people would not work on him. “Elizabeth.”

She sighed and then told him, “It just bothers me that they treat you like that.”

“Like what, exactly?”

“Like you’re some kind of black sheep or something. Just because you handle things differently, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their way is right and your way is wrong.” She let out a frustrated puff of air. "They can't even see it."

"See what?"

"All those years with Hank. All the times he hurt you, or scared you. And you didn't do anything. You could have, but you didn't. Michael, you're, like, the strongest, bravest person I know. And I just wish that Max and Isabel could see that, instead of this idea they have of you in their heads."

The strongest and bravest person she knew? That didn't sound like him at all. Michael couldn't even see himself the way she was describing, so he had zero expectations that his siblings ever would. “Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath waiting for that to change. It’s always been like that with them.”

She pulled away slightly and stared up at him with an intent look in her eyes. “Well, not with me. It’s never going to be like that with me.”

“I know.” Even before that morning a month ago, Parker had always treated him with the same respect with which she treated everyone else – with the one, glaring exception of Pam Troy, but no one could blame Parker for that.

Without warning, the door to the janitor’s closet opened, and there was Troy in all her desperate glory, a look of extreme distaste on her face as she stared at the two of them. One of her clawed hands was wrapped around the wrist of her latest conquest – some jock with roughly the same IQ as a rock and a chiseled jaw. “Ugh! It’s Parker and her charity project. Come on, Scott. Let’s go see if the eraser room is free.”

She flipped her overly permed hair and then slammed the door shut with a huff, and the sound of her heels clacking on the tiled floors echoed loudly, causing him to wonder why neither of them had noticed her approach.

Parker eyed the door, utterly unimpressed. “And with people like Pam Troy in the world, _you’re_ supposed to be the alien?”

“Well, who knows? Max, Isabel, and I are here, and nobody’s figured it out. Maybe ours isn’t the only alien race that’s infiltrated this planet.”

“An entire race of Pams,” Parker said, the horror in her tone only partially faked. “For all our sakes, I really hope not.”

Michael snorted. “Don’t worry. If the Pams ever decide to take over the world, I’ll protect you.”

She gave him a cheeky grin. “And that is why you are my favorite alien.”

Rolling his eyes, Michael let her go completely and told her, “Come on, before Troy tries to convince the entire student body that you’re taking advantage of me.”

“Pretty sure she’s too busy sucking out Scott Schroder’s soul to circulate even more dumb rumors about me today, but you’re probably right. If we don’t go now, we’re gonna be late to class.”

“Oh, is that what she’s sucking right now?”

Ignoring him pointedly, she opened the door and stepped out into the mostly empty hallway.

Kyle Valenti chose the moment Michael followed her and shut the door to walk by and give Parker a look that managed to be a mixture of longing, wounded, and judgmental.

As she gazed at the back of Valenti’s head, she let out a sigh and her shoulders slumped. “Great. He hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t. Trust me, I know what it looks like when a guy can’t get over you, Parker.” He shoved away the notion that he sounded a little too much like his brother did last night when he was talking about Michael.

She shot him a startled glance.

“Not _me_. Don’t get too excited.”

“Well, then, who-“ Her eyes widened as she had an epiphany. “That’s why you and Max are having trouble? He’s jealous, because he thinks you and I are together?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Don’t go letting on to him that you found out, alright? He’ll think that I told you, and then he’ll be even more unbearable.”

“Oh, trust me, I am, like, so not talking about this with Max. I mean, he saved my life, and I’m always going to be grateful for that, but I don’t really know him. For that matter, he doesn’t really know _me_. We’re just lab partners.”

There was a tiny part of him that felt a little bad for his brother, hearing that he would probably never have a chance with the girl he had been obsessing over for years, but it was overshadowed by the inexplicable feeling of relief. He dismissed it as being grateful to have so easily avoided the disaster that probably would have resulted from the two of them getting together. Max was a bit of a control freak, and Michael had a feeling Parker would hate that. Their relationship would explode, and Michael would be caught in the middle. So, yeah. Crisis averted.

The warning bell rang, and the two of them parted ways.

“See you later,” Parker called over her shoulder.

“Later, Elizabeth.”

As he walked into class about ten seconds after the final bell rang, and the teacher gave him an exasperated look, Michael took a moment to appreciate the fact that he really would be able to see Parker again later. His brother may have been a bit of a self-righteous pain in the ass from time to time, but he had come through in a big way when he needed to the most, and Michael, much like Parker, would always be grateful to him for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who find it a little strange how tactile Michael is with Liz in this fic, even though they're not currently together, it's based on the moments when things were good between him and Maria in cannon, and the times when he comforted Isabel (the pregnancy scare comes to mind), and the time he comforted Liz at the carnival. Michael has always been more a man of action than words, not because he isn't intelligent, but because is smart enough to recognize that it's much easier to lie with pretty phrases than it is with what you do. Plus, I have a feeling that the poor boy was touch starved, and in this series, Liz very quickly becomes the one person in his life who is always safe, because she helped him when he needed someone the most, and she didn't expect anything in return, so she is the ideal person for him to go to in order to fill that void.


End file.
